thoughts on Aloha

Bradley Cooper stars as Brian Gilcrest, who used to be in the military but is now an independent contractor.  He is traveling to Hawaii to negotiate on behalf of billionaire industrialist Carson Welch (Bill Murray), who has financed and is planning to launch a satellite.  An Air Force officer named Allison Ng (Emma Stone) will be keeping an eye on Brian.  He also will be crossing paths with his ex-girlfriend, Tracy Woodside (Rachel McAdams), who is now married with two kids.

This article came out today explaining why the film flopped at the box office this past weekend, and this leaked e-mail from Sony's Amy Pascal sums it up as well as anything: “People don’t like people in movies who flirt with married people or married people who flirt...The satellite makes no sense...I’m never starting a movie again when the script is ridiculous. And we all know it.”  The thing is, there's a lot that's good here.  Most of the cast is good.  The Hawaiian backdrop has a lot of potential.  Writer/director Cameron Crowe simply needed to give Brian Gilcrest a simpler reason to be in Hawaii interacting with this cast of characters, or perhaps slightly different characters played by the same actors.  Although the satellite storyline ultimately leads to an exciting climax, I found the storyline pretty boring and difficult to follow throughout much of the film. 

The interpersonal storylines also don't carry a lot of tension.  Brian finds Allison annoying at first, but eventually develops feelings for her and comes to view her as a second chance or fresh start.  It's clear from pretty much the beginning that (spoiler alert, but really, it's pretty obvious) Tracy's oldest child is Brian's, but it honestly doesn't seem to matter that much; Brian doesn't seem particularly mad that Tracy never told him he had a daughter, and Tracy's husband, Woody (John Krasinski), seems to have been a fine father to her all this time.  I always find Bradley Cooper a little hard to root for, and as Brian, he just doesn't seem to care enough about any of this.

That said, it's not like I had a horrible time.  The film is moderately pleasant.  It's just that for all that seems to be at stake here, it's less exciting and feels less important than it should.