Reviews by PvtCaboose91

It has now been six years since the abortion that was McG's Terminator Salvation was met with substandard box office and critical mauling, posing a challenge for any filmmaker bold enough to pursue further sequels. There were not many logical places for the series to go, thus 2015's Terminator Genisys functions as both a sequel and a reboot, avoiding another future war movie by forcing a story set before Judgment Day to return the series to its roots. Genisys is barely a movie at all - it's a concept of a movie; a vague mishmash of half-baked ideas and potentially interesting scenes strung together not to tell a worthwhile story, but to fill out a balance sheet. Indeed, it solely exists to plot a workable new path for the franchise, paving the way for more sequels to allow Skydance to keep beating this dead horse for all that it's worth until the rights revert back to James Cameron in 2019. And with a soft PG-13 rating in place forbidding the visceral delights of the first two Terminator movies, Genisys feels safe and generic.

In the apocalyptic future war, human resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) spearheads an attack on Skynet headquarters with help from right hand man Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), in the process delivering a devastating blow that may finally end the war against the machines. But it is discovered that a T-800 Terminator has been sent back in time to 1984 to kill John's mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke), to ensure that that he is never born. Kyle volunteers to serve as Sarah's protector, but upon arrival in 1984, he discovers that Sarah is already aware of the situation, locked in warrior mode and able to protect herself, aided by her lifelong Terminator guardian “Pops” (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Aiming to prevent Judgment Day, Sarah and Pops have created a time machine of their own, planning to travel forward in time to 1997 to stop Skynet before it goes live. But apparently the timeline has been altered and Kyle has memories of a future which hasn't happened yet, and they need to travel to 2017 instead. And on it goes.

Every time an R-rated franchise is continued with a PG-13 instalment, the press strategies are identical, with the studio, actors, and even the blind fan-boys wanting us to believe that PG-13 is no big deal, because it will (somehow) still be violent, and what matters the most is the script and story. Funnily enough, Arnie actually satirised such blatant lies in Last Action Hero back in 1994, with his character explaining that “In this movie we only kill 48 people. In the last one we killed 119. But we make up for it with a good story, emotions, depth, dimensions.” Big surprise: Genisys's PG-13 rating is a much bigger deal than we have been led to believe. Perhaps it could have worked if it did have a smart screenplay, but Genisys is a dumb action film, lacking the smarts and heart of the original Terminator. It's a numbing succession of brainless action sequences, and without the visceral punch of an R rating, there is not much to see here.

Genisys is not just a Terminator reboot, but a DC Comics-esque multiverse reboot. It's a poor excuse for the filmmakers to create a grab-bag of every single element that people liked from the previous movies; Sarah is already a badass, there's a T-1000 (played by Byung-hun Lee), there's another de-aged Arnold T-800 (with improved CGI), and they've recreated the main plot thrust of T2, with the heroes trying to destroy Skynet before Judgment Day erupts. Genisys also copycats another notable aspect of T2, with a relationship between Sarah and "Pops." A more appropriate title for the movie would be Terminator FanService. But then again, this is a PG-13 movie, so they cannot even do the fan service thing properly. Also, turning Arnie's ruthless T-800 into a sidekick for a wise-ass kid was a bad idea back in 1990, and having him as a gentle father figure is just as ill-advised here. I miss Arnie the hardcore killer.

Genisys is easy to follow, but examining the narrative too closely is a bad idea, with paradoxes and unanswered questions. The question of who sent Pops back in time is a real head-scratcher, and the script politely refuses to answer the query, with the T-800 explaining that his files were erased. But the biggest head-scratcher is the need for Sarah and Pops to build a time machine to go forward in time. Time-travel exists in the Terminator franchise in order for people and cyborgs to go back in time to change things, which is understandable, but why use it to travel forward? Time goes forwards in the first fucking place! Instead of jumping ahead thirty years, Sarah, Kyle and Pops could have spent that time improving their tactics and arsenal, keeping an eye on the Skynet situation, remaining one step ahead, and could have even destroyed Skynet whilst it was still in beta. But instead, they go for the ticking clock of Terminator 3 (hey look, another idea stolen from a past movie), even though it's incredibly idiotic that they aim to show up with limited time on their side, and just wing it.

The marketing campaign for Genisys is one of the poorest in recent memory, with the bargain basement posters, and the trailers which spoiled all of the movie's surprises. The big “twist” is that John is now the villain. But rather than the villain being a Terminator who looks like John, it actually is John Connor whose genetics were tampered with, and now he's Skynet's guardian to safeguard his own future existence. Frankly, this concept is unforgivable. John has always been mankind's saviour in the future war, but now it's all for naught. Perhaps this decision was made to sidestep the need for a sex scene between Kyle and Sarah, because PG-13. There are some interesting thematic undercurrents in the screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis and executive producer Patrick Lussier - particularly in regards to our growing reliance on screens in a modern world dominated by Google, Microsoft and Apple; and with Sarah standing up for her right to choose a mate rather than letting her supposed fate dictate that she must climb into bed with Kyle - but the movie is more interested in prolonged action scenes and terrible humour. Heavens me, the attempts at comedy are woeful, especially a hideous running joke that Pops cannot smile properly despite repeated attempts. Pops even makes a comment about Kyle's endowment, while another scene involves Pops getting a mugshot while the Cops theme plays in the background. Holy shit.

At least there is colour to the movie. One of Terminator Castration's many, many flaws is its desaturated cinematography which rendered it monotonous and visually drab. With Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) at the helm, Genisys retains a far brighter colour scheme, and to its credit it is more watchable than its immediate predecessor. However, the action scenes are a mixed bag. The 1984 sequences are surprisingly proficient, but the bigger set-pieces are boring, even with the mammoth budget. Genisys goes far too over-the-top, sapping humanity and intensity from the material. A certain bus crash is incredibly overdone and should have left people seriously injured or dead, but Kyle and Sarah, who were inside, walk away without a scratch on them. Even the special effects are a mixed bag; the T-1000 looks worse than it did in 1990, the flashy CG-riddled climax looks like vomit, and so on. The young Arnold does look impressive initially, but when he begins fighting Pops, he suddenly looks phoney.

Terminator Genisys does have one benefit to elevate it above Suckvation: Arnie's participation. The Austrian Oak is getting old, but he's still a welcome addition to the cast, keeping the flick watchable even during its worst patches. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast (not to mention the film itself) fail to serve him. Emilia Clarke is hopelessly out of her depth here, exuding minimal screen presence, coming across as a very passionless Sarah Connor. She's nothing compared to the powerhouse that was Linda Hamilton in T2. I do not hate Jai Courtney, but he makes so little of an impression here, and it's painful to watch him attempt to fill Michael Biehn's formidable shoes. Jason Clarke (no relation to Emilia) does what he can as John Connor, but he's just not a believable badass - he looks more like an office worker. The only bright spot (apart from Arnie) is J.K. Simmons as a detective who's caught up in the battle. And it's heartbreaking to see former Doctor Who star Matt Smith caught up in this garbage.

Can this please be it for the Terminator franchise? We as viewers have suffered enough, and even though Genisys is an improvement over Terminator Salvation, we are still far away from the groundbreaking brilliance of Cameron's 1984 masterpiece which started it all. Characters are uninteresting, there's no tension or sense of stakes, the script struggles with a needlessly convoluted narrative, and attempts at comedy are painful. The seeds of a half-decent movie are here, but the potential could not be found in the hands of this creative team. It has been a week since I viewed Genisys, and I am hard-pressed to remember anything I liked about it. Anyone seeking a glossy, expensive studio blockbuster may enjoy Genisys, but give me a violent, bone-crunching '80s sci-fi action-thriller like 1984's The Terminator over this guff any day of the week.

After the disappointment of Die Another Day in 2002, the producers of the long-running James Bond franchise realised that they could not keep sticking to the pre-established formula, instead opting to hit the reset button for 2006's Casino Royale. However, they stopped short of actually finding something distinctively new for the series to become in order for it to be as unique and exciting as it was back when it started. Instead, the franchise is now more concerned with aping whatever is popular and successful at any given time. Royale is a visible clone of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, Quantum of Solace was a Jason Bourne movie, Skyfall went back to the Nolan approach, and now Spectre is a Marvel movie. More specifically, Spectre is Captain America: The Winter Soldier, though the narrative also bears astonishing similarities to the far superior Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. Once again helmed by Sam Mendes (Skyfall), Spectre may not be an unredeemable disaster, but it does fall towards the lower end of the Bond spectrum, a dull-as-hell action flick suffering from some of the worst plotting in 007 history.

It is a tense time for MI6, with the proposed merger with MI5 threatening to eliminate the "00" program in favour of employing high-tech surveillance techniques. MI6 is therefore under some intense scrutiny, putting M (Ralph Fiennes) on edge, who's keen to keep James Bond (Daniel Craig) on a tight leash after a destructive stunt in Mexico City. Setting off on a personal mission without permission, Bond seeks out old foe Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), who has information about a shady organisation known as Spectre, led by a certain Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz). Travelling to Austria, Bond meets with Madeleine Swan (Léa Seydoux), Mr. White's daughter, who has ties to Spectre's history. Back in London, M, Q (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) are left to deal with all the bureaucratic business, with M wanting to bring Bond back in, but evidence comes to light that 007 may be onto something.

It's difficult to cover the gaping flaws of Spectre's moronic plotting without divulging spoilers, even though most/all of the surprises were either given away or strongly hinted at in the trailers in the first place, and the "twists" aren't nearly as exciting as the movie wants them to be. Nevertheless, a spoiler warning is in place.

Even though Spectre does incorporate elements of the long-running James Bond formula - with some gadgets, the gun barrel opening, an old-school henchman (Dave Bautista), and a beautiful love interest for Bond - the movie is still reluctant to return to the franchise's status quo, with Spectre another needlessly personal mission for 007. This series doesn't need such convoluted rubbish to justify action sequences, since killing people and wreaking havoc is literally Bond's 9-5 workday! He gets paid to travel to exotic locations and kill a bunch of bad guys, therefore the story does not need to be a personal vendetta, and if they had to do this sort of thing, can they at least put in some fucking effort? Worse, Spectre is not a standalone adventure. Whereas you could practically watch any other James Bond film out of order, this twenty-fourth instalment requires intimate knowledge of the last three movies, making it a 007 film only for franchise aficionados. You would think the producers would have recognised the foolishness of this approach after Quantum of Solace.

Following on from Skyfall and digging further into Bond's past, Spectre reveals that Oberhauser is the secret agent's brother, but this daft development only triggers Austin Powers flashbacks. (Except all three Austin Powers movies are much, much better than this garbage.) Worse, Oberhauser murders his father, becomes a global supervillain, and decides to set his crosshairs on Bond simply because his father loved James more than him. Oh boo hoo. Also, yes, Spectre pulls a Star Trek: Into Darkness on us; Oberhauser is the iconic franchise villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, having changed his name after staging his death. But it makes no fucking sense for Oberhauser to choose to be called Blofeld because the moniker has absolutely no bearing on the context of this particular story - Oberhauser just picked it out of a clear blue fucking sky.

Marvel-esque world-building has become the order of the day in recent years, and it's clear that MGM has taken note. Thus, Spectre wants its largely humdrum events to have the same kind of plot-threads-coalescing weight of the Avengers films, but they try to achieve it after-the-fact, without having actually done any of the prep work. In the most contrived way possible, Spectre ties together the events and villains of the last three instalments by revealing that Blofeld was responsible for everything, lurking behind the curtain and pulling the strings in secret. The problem is, this doesn't actually make any logical sense in the context of the previous movies. It doesn't even make sense in this context, given what his supposed endgame is.

Despite a gargantuan $245 million production budget, Spectre is not a particularly exciting or involving motion picture. The opening sequence in Mexico City is admittedly well-staged, but the succeeding action beats are strangely sedate, failing to raise the pulse. A car chase between Bond and Hinx has to be one of the most bland and uneventful vehicular pursuits in cinematic history, while a chase involving a plane and some cars is a total snoozer, which is a real surprise given director Mendes' past experience. Naturally, the film does look good, especially with the lush, stylish cinematography courtesy of Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar), and the sumptuous accompanying score by Thomas Newman, but such surface pleasures ultimately add up to very little. Despite being a watchable motion picture, there's no danger, dread or intensity, with vanilla, determinedly bloodless violence, and romantic/sex scenes that feel bland and perfunctory.

This is Craig's fourth go-round as James Bond, but he's clearly phoning this one in. Craig spent the press tour for Spectre whining non-stop about how much he dislikes playing Bond, despite the gargantuan paydays he keeps scoring. (When was the last time Craig headlined a film outside of Bond that was actually successful?) Waltz is a formidable villain, but his screen-time is seriously limited, while the well-publicised appearance of Monica Bellucci amounts to precisely nothing. Seriously, Bellucci is in the movie for less than five minutes and could have easily been cut from the finished film. The only one who seems to care here is Bautista as a silent, deadly assassin. Also worthwhile is Sherlock actor Andrew Scott, who makes a positive impressive as a rising British Secret Service leader. Meanwhile, the usual players do their jobs well enough, with Fiennes, Whishaw and Harris all perfectly acceptable as Bond's colleagues.

Spectre is plagued with serious issues, from its studiously forgettable main title song by Sam Smith (set to a laughably naff title sequence) to its underwhelming action scenes. There aren't even any memorable one-liners. It has been nine years since Casino Royale, and the 007 series is already in need of another major rethink.

Bad Boys II is the perfect Michael Bay movie. It's overblown, self-indulgent, offensive, puerile, overlong and ridiculous, yet it's almost proud to wear the aforementioned descriptors. There's a lot of hate for this movie, and while that's an understandable viewpoint, Bad Boys II is a total gas for my money, a mammoth 150-minute action blockbuster extravaganza that genuinely delivers. Fun is fun, and I cannot deny that I was joyed by nearly every minute of this bona fide guilty pleasure, which is both exhilarating and downright hilarious. Bad Boys II is truly unique in the annals of action cinema, and with its R rating in place allowing for excessive blood-letting, relentless profanity and crude bantering (not to mention boobs...because Michael Bay), all backed by a monster budget, it's not likely that we will ever see anything comparable again.

A pair of Miami police officers, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are partners working for the Tactical Narcotics Team, overseen by Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano). Investigating the flow of ecstasy into the United States, Mike and Marcus are lead to powerful Cuban drug lord Johnny Tapia (Jordi Mollà), who has been arrested in the past but never convicted. The DEA are interested in Tapia as well, with Marcus' younger sister Syd (Gabrielle Union) working undercover to bring him down. And, unbeknownst to Marcus, Syd and Mike have started a secretive relationship.

When people speak in negative generalisations about Hollywood, calling blockbusters big and dumb, Bad Boys II is precisely the kind of production they are referring to. Aside from the obvious overblown Hollywood theatrics throughout, the tactics of the DEA and Miami PD are thoroughly ridiculous here. Sure, firearms handling is pretty accurate owing to on-set advisors and even real policemen being used as extras, but such high-risk assaults, shootouts and car chases would never happen in real life. Also, apparently Miami cops are extraordinarily well paid since they live in luxurious mansions and drive sports cars. That's just scratching the surface of the absurdity to unearth here, but suffice it to say, nobody should ever come to Bad Boys II expecting anything remotely believable. All these flaws are entirely by design - it's not as if Bay set out to make a true-to-life cop drama.

Penned by Ron Shelton and Jerry Stahl, Bad Boys II is a lengthy flick at a bit under two-and-a-half hours, but it never drags. The easily offended may grow sick of the material fairly quickly, but I found it consistently entertaining, lurching from one big ridiculous action set-piece to the next, pausing in between the chaos for some outrageous comedic vignettes. Indeed, Bad Boys II is the funniest movie of Bay's filmmaking career (not exactly a high bar to reach), which is probably attributable to Smith and Lawrence more than anything else (this is not an especially well-written actioner). A tears-in-the-eyes comic highlight sees Mike and Marcus intimidating a young boy arriving to take Marcus' daughter on a date, while a iconic scene in an electronics store never gets old, and it's side-splitting to see the boys clash with their long-suffering captain. Comedy is subjective, so others are perfectly welcome to disagree with this viewpoint, but I cannot lie - I laughed heartily and frequently.

Bay's films are often marred by sickening shaky-cam photography which transforms every set-piece into a disjointed, headache-inducing mess, but while the camerawork here is frenetic, it's easy to follow the mayhem, which is both frequent and enjoyable. With an R rating in place here, no awkward or restrictive editing is employed - we are permitted to take in the bloodshed, in all its violent glory. Bay was working with a hefty budget here, with a generous $130 million at his disposal, thus production values are gorgeous and the photography is frequently eye-catching. Bay is a notoriously difficult director to work with since he's so demanding, but his dedication shows on-screen, with a sense of authority pervading the feature, and with the action sequences benefitting from accomplished cinematic craftsmanship. Fluid and fun, any action fan should enjoy the action on display here. And underscoring the shootouts and explosions is a memorable score courtesy of Trevor Rabin.

Smith and Lawrence are perhaps the key reason why the Bad Boys movies work as well as they do. Both men come from comedic backgrounds, and they look believable as men of action. Not to mention, they share astonishing, easy-going chemistry and there's a palpable camaraderie between them; their bantering is a frequent source of amusement. The most notable member of the supporting cast is Pantoliano, a perfect choice for Captain Howard. When Smith, Lawrence and Pantoliano feature in a scene together, it's guaranteed to be comedy gold.

Bad Boys II is a motion picture which really highlights the subjective nature of movie criticism, and the polarising nature of films in general. Respected critics trashed this movie to death, with the jaded James Berardinelli even going to far as to state that anyone who enjoys Bad Boys II should seek professional help - such pomposity! For my money, this is an insanely fun movie, the kind of big-budget actioner that can be enjoyed with beer and pizza. Bay's best movie will always be the '90s action masterpiece known as The Rock, but Bad Boys II is right up there with the director's superior filmic endeavours, far better than all of the Transformers abominations or the agonising Pain & Gain. It's difficult to respect Bay, but when he gets it right, dear lord he gets it right.

At this point, it's clear that nobody involved in the Paranormal Activity franchise is actually trying anymore. The title alone will sell enough tickets to become profitable, so no undue effort is taken during the writing process anymore; the formula is well-established and they stick to it, logic be damned. Who cares if there's no justification for the found footage conceit? Who cares if the entire thing amounts to a lazy rehash? Who cares about answering lingering questions or being creative? Who cares if it's not actually scary? Three years have elapsed since 2012's Paranormal Activity 4, and this fifth instalment was continually delayed, which should have prompted the creative team to use their time wisely to craft a memorable franchise capper. Instead, this (apparently) final instalment closes the series on a damp squib. There are loud noises and demons, but the characters are flat and it's hard to care about anything that happens, not to mention the “scares” are both lazy and ineffective.

Christmastime is approaching, and parents Ryan (Chris J. Murray) and Emily (Brit Shaw) have moved into a spacious suburban Californian home with their seven-year-old daughter Leila (Ivy George). Visiting for the holiday season is Ryan's brother Mike (Dan Gill), while Emily's sister Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is also present. While decorating the house, Mike and Ryan find an old box containing videocassettes and a bulky '80s-era camcorder. As the pair begin to play with the still-functioning camera, they realise it's capable of seeing things invisible to the naked eye. Also, the VHS tapes contain footage of young Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Taylor Brown) being raised by a cult. With spooky events occurring around the house, and with Leila claiming she has a friend named Toby (yes, this shit again), video cameras are setup during the night (yes, that shit again) to capture evidence of a demonic presence.

Much like Saw, the Paranormal Activity series has been tarnished with its endless sequels, and people seem to forget that Oren Peli's initial micro-budget feature was actually quite good, with a slow-burning narrative and some genuinely scary moments. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension may stick to the franchise's staples, especially with cameras being set up overnight, but it plays more like a pale aping rather than an effective sequel. Writers Jason Pagan, Andrew Deutschman, Adam Robitel and Gavin Heffernan (it took four scribes to create this muck?) care little about build-up or suspense. Digital demons are glimpsed in the first act, and there's plenty of digital supernatural action throughout, not to mention idiocy runs rampant. Unexplainable events are captured on tape, yet the protagonists remain sceptical rather than packing up and leaving. And once they do wind up leaving, a couple of characters remain determined to stick around for further investigating. Really? Worse, very little is done about Leila despite being clearly cursed - she bites a priest, for crying out loud!

The Ghost Dimension fails to colour outside the lines, with director Gregory Plotkin creating an exceedingly rote narrative that adds frustratingly little to the franchise. Also, there is a big hole that's carried over from the fourth movie: we're meant to believe that these features are comprised of legitimate found footage, yet the previous movies have ostensibly not been released in the franchise's reality. How does that work? 2013's Grave Encounters 2 was mediocre, but it did something interesting and meta by introducing characters who had seen the first Grave Encounters and accepted that it had been fabricated. But this sixth Paranormal Activity movie has no interest in anything meta or overly interesting, instead playing everything with a straight face. There's an attempt at meta humour, with Mike asking “Did they just film everything?” while watching old VHS tapes, but nothing further is done. The conventions of this series are ripe for humour, but nobody seems to realise it, with characters still running around holding cameras, filming everything despite being in mortal danger. Urgh.

Having said that, however, The Ghost Dimension does plays like an unintentional comedy at times. The 2014 spinoff The Marked Ones contained the hilarious image of witches being blasted away with shotguns, and The Ghost Dimension is similarly naff. In one scene, Ryan and Mike cower behind the fucking kitchen bench to hide from Toby, and the priest (Michael Krawic) awkwardly comes across as a paedophile. The movie cannot even raise the pulse during the final act, when it deteriorates into shaky, night-vision-lit mayhem leading to a predictable ending. After five of these freaking movies ending the exact same way, such a dénouement is no longer disturbing or interesting - it's obvious and lazy. 3D is employed for this go-around, for absolutely no reason other than to inflate ticket prices. Apparently we're meant to accept that the characters were using consumer 3D cameras, and that the old VHS camera from the '80s also shoots in pristine 3D. Also, why is it called The Ghost Dimension if Toby is a demon? See how stupid this garbage is?

Not even franchise constant Katie Featherston shows up here, and The Ghost Dimension does nothing worthwhile to tie up the loose ends of the past five movies. There's no point or purpose to this garbage, and it's not thrilling or fun. Instead, the whole thing is oppressive and draggy, with moronic characters, nonsensical plotting, and irritating characters. Let's hope this really does turn out to be the final Paranormal Activity.

"The future isn't just something that happens. It's a brutal force with a great sense of humor that will steamroll you if you're not watching."

Cameron Crowe continues his cinematic downward spiral with 2015's Aloha, a project that should have the veteran filmmaker's redemption for past misfires, but instead plays out like a poor imitator of the type of excellent pictures that Crowe used to manufacture with ostensible ease. A tone-deaf romantic dramedy, the feature is overloaded with ideas, but Crowe struggles to connect them in a coherent or substantial way, resulting in a disjointed storytelling mess of confused tonality that squanders a superb ensemble cast. Frankly, the film's failure is not a total surprise, considering the delays as well as the leaked emails from Amy Pascal (a former top executive at Sony Pictures) who stated that the movie was shaping up to be a disaster. With any hope, this will be Crowe's last movie for a while.

A former Air Force pilot now working as a private contractor, Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) travels to Hawaii to assist in the launch of a communications satellite for billionaire industrialist Carson Welch (Bill Murray). Landing on the island, Brian immediately runs into ex-girlfriend Tracy (Rachel McAdams), who's now married to airman Woody (John Krasinski) and has two children (Danielle Rose Russell, Jaeden Lieberher). Meanwhile, Air Force Captain Allison Ng (Emma Stone) is assigned to monitor Brian during his five-day stay on the island and takes an immediate liking to him. Brian finds himself drawn to Allison, but Tracy's flirtations throw things into disarray. Also complicating matters is the impending launch of Carson's satellite which may be a bit more sinister than anyone has suspected. 

Aloha cannot figure out what it is, and the end result amounts to an erratic hodgepodge of half-baked ideas, with nothing being given the breathing space required in order to fully take flight. Crowe's script contains several interesting concepts - including creepy Hawaiian urban legends and military-related issues - but does literally nothing with them. The main thrust of the plot concerns Carson being up to no good, but it has so little bearing on the narrative at large that one has to question its purpose. In fact, the subplot dealing with the satellite launch makes zero sense, eventually culminating with a hacker battle between Brian and some Chinese cyber-terrorists which winds up being every bit as ludicrous and perplexing as it sounds. It's actually hard to figure out precisely what genre Crowe was aiming for - it's not very funny, the romance never soars, and it also dips into thriller territory. It feels as if Crowe was constantly changing his mind during shooting, making it difficult to get a firm grasp on what the movie is meant to be about. It's flat as a pancake.

As perhaps to be expected, the Hawaiian locales do make for some very pretty pictures, and the island's natural beauty is an ideal backdrop for a film of this ilk. Aloha does look magical, with picturesque cinematography and eye-catching production values, not to mention the agreeable music that underscores the enterprise, but it ultimately amounts to nothing. With Crowe unable to juggle the various plotlines in a cohesive fashion, the characters make little sense, especially Brian who's about as ill-defined as the movie itself. Also problematic is Tracy, who's unusually keen to ditch her husband and get back with Brian after thirteen years apart. Meanwhile, the "romance" between Ng and Brian comes across as wholly forced. Aloha should be warm and satisfying, but instead comes across as artificial and cold to the touch, solid technical specs notwithstanding.

Aloha was shot in 2013 but spent the best part of 18 months in post-production, with rumours surfacing online about the troubled editing process. Judging from Amy Pascal's emails, one supposes that Crowe's original, much longer edit was probably a meandering mess, which prompted Sony to bring in as many people as possible to try and carve something watchable out of the available footage. One has to genuinely pity the cast at the centre of all this, with Cooper remaining quite amiable despite the poor material, while the likes of Stone and McAdams are likewise charming. But perhaps the biggest waste is Bill Murray, who's given hardly any screen-time, stuck with a one-dimensional role that squanders his immense talents. Considering how notoriously difficult it is to secure Murray for a motion picture, one has to wonder why Crowe opted to use him in such a wasteful manner. Other names pop up in supporting roles, including Alec Baldwin and Danny McBride as military men, but they have minimal purpose in the story.

Admittedly, as the movie approaches the finish line, there is a degree of sincerity that works to an extent, but it's a case of too little, too late. In fairness, Aloha does breeze by easily enough throughout its 110-minute runtime, and it's not outright terrible enough to be angering, though this is hardly a ringing endorsement. Aloha is not some kind of abomination against cinema; just an aggressively mediocre, miscalculated dramedy for which it's hard to conjure up much feeling towards. There has been controversy about the fact that the main characters are all Caucasian, whitewashing the Hawaiian culture, but honestly, that's about the least of the film's problems. Sweep this one under the rug, forget about it, and move on.