These are real lines of dialogue from “Aloha”:
“Tell me you don’t believe in the sky.”
“You’re not going to pick my brains; they’re unpickable.”
“You sold your soul so many times no one’s buying anymore.”
“I’m just making sure we’re still alive.” “Are we?”
Eek. It reminds me how my favorite journalism professor at U. of I. said that every time he sat down to write, he feared that he wouldn’t be able to produce at a level anywhere near his best. Cameron Crowe should know something about this—the writer-director’s first effort since 2011’s cutesy yet affecting “We Bought a Zoo” operates on cuteness overload, attempting to manufacture Crowe’s trademark sentimentality only through cloying, artificial sweetener. It gets dangerously close to unintentional self-parody.
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Bradley “My Much-Younger Love Interests Should Be Playing My Kid Sister” Cooper stars as Brian, who returns to Hawaii after leaving the military for a contracting job that resulted in a leg injury of minimal consequence. It’s been 13 years since he’s seen his ex, Tracy, (Rachel McAdams), who has married non-communicative soldier Woody (John Krasinski) and had two kids, the younger of which (Jaeden Lieberher of “St. Vincent”) has the inside track as the summer’s most instantly grating character. Fixated on Hawaiian myths, the kid’s a gooey moppet that makes Jonathan Lipnicki’s irresistible tyke in “Jerry Maguire” seem both credible and badass by comparison.
Likewise, “Aloha” is obsessed with myth but devoid of understanding and mystery. It fumbles through the relationship between Brian and Allison (Emma Stone, also Woody Allen’s current muse for May-December stuff), the Air Force officer who volunteered to supervise him during his poorly depicted latest assignment. She’s a tough cookie on the outside but a soft, borderline unprofessional, inevitable love interest on the inside—their banter makes you wish theater seats came with fast-forward buttons.
Though occasionally injected with energy (Alec Baldwin’s valuable supporting turn as a hot-headed general), the charmless “Aloha” prefers everything wishy-washy—its half-hearted love triangles, its shallow concept of privatized space exploration, its flattened idea of Hawaii and its people. Crowe, whose “Almost Famous” is one of my all-time favorites, is both stuck in his comfort zone and out of his element, overwriting unnatural conversations with too many words, and the wrong ones. He’s also repeating previously explored ideas about lonely men at a professional crossroads, this time with the pop and flavor of five-year-old gum.
1.5 stars (out of four)
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