Aloha MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: +1 Content: -3

Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, Emma Stone, Bill Murray. Comedy/romance. Written & directed by Cameron Crowe.

FILM SYNOPSIS: A celebrated military contractor returns to the site of his greatest career triumphs and reconnects with a long-ago love while unexpectedly falling for the hard-charging Air Force watch-dog assigned to him.

PREVIEW REVIEW: Though my life is dedicated to Christ, I’m, well, only human. So I sat through this movie about a guy in love with two women (Rachel McAdams, Emma Stone) thinking, wouldn’t be nice if we guys could marry two women (Rachel McAdams, Emma Stone). I mean, at the same time…and they’d be down with it.

Oops, hope I didn’t just give an activist another cause to defend/justify – bigamy.

By now you must be asking, where’s the review? Well, contrary to common belief, not all of us film critics wait with poison pen in hand to attack a movie. Sometimes, especially when we have respect for the talents involved, it’s difficult to apply our venom-dipped goose quills to paper. But I guess I’ve waited long enough. So brace yourselves, I’ve just dipped.

This isn’t a movie, it’s a lab experiment. It’s as if Dr. Frankenstein spliced together parts of unsold sitcoms and ----, then sat back and watched it meander around the screen in search of reason. And in keeping with the culture’s moral torpor, the good doctor has infused his premise with premarital sex, abusive language and all the gentility of a Saturday Night Live sketch.

Cameron Crowe has proven himself with Almost Famous, We Bought a Zoo and others, but this effort is completely devoid of charm or plausibility. A hundred and one times I have said, “No one sets out to make a bad movie.” I’ve also tried to be respectful and forgiving of those who have found themselves ensnared within a bad movie. But my wrath pours forth due to the mystery of why this film got made in the first place. Perhaps the premise held promise. But didn’t anybody connected to the project read the completed script before signing on the dotted line?

I predict favorable reviews of this cadaver of a comedy will be few and far between. Yet, despite the surgery Aloha will undergo by miffed film reviewers, some people will disregard our cautionary notices. What’s more, in two months when it comes out on DVD, there will be some who actually purchase it. They’ll add it to their home film libraries, alongside Because I Said So, License To Wed and that Citizen Kane of romantic comedies, 27 Dresses.

I know, I know, different strokes – but when friends critically assess your cinematic taste with a disdainful, “You bought that?” remember, “I warned you.”

Preview Reviewer: Phil Boatwright
Distributor: Columbia