Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone in “Aloha ” 2015. Neal Preston

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MOVIE INFO

“ALOHA”
Comedy, Drama, Romance
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 watchdog assigned to him.
Length: 105 minutes
Rating: Mild sex, nudity, profanity, alcohol, drugs and smoking
Director: Cameron Crowe
Writer: Cameron Crowe
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, Emma Stone

Yes, “Aloha” was released back in 2015, and a lot has happened since then, don’t you know. I’m only seeing and sharing it now because I’ve fallen in serious “like” with Emma Stone’s eyes, Bradley Cooper’s career and the political world.

We find ourselves in Hawaii, where this film was made, where real lava flows and entire suburban neighborhoods went up in flames.

In these happier days, we’re watching a famous military contractor (Cooper) who has just returned to the fabled islands of palm trees and surfers and guitar strummers and who gets in trouble with two different women.

This movie reconnects him with a long-ago love (Rachel McAdams) who is (are you ready for this?) married to the pilot (John Krasinski, “A Quiet Place”) of the plane that just delivered him. Now, that sort of thing happens so often, I’m surprised that an Oscar-winning writer-director like Cameron Crowe just stumbled on such an idea.

I guess this sort of thing happens, but it’s being sold as a set-up for a love story, which is OK because American women are in the market for a good love story. As long as it’s a really, really good story, well acted by beautiful, talented people like Emma Stone, who plays a gorgeous Air Force “Watchdog” for a mysterious guy (Bill Murray — yes, that Bill Murray, who used to be on Saturday Night Live and plays here a wealthy, suspicious space entrepreneur).

Stone is (are you ready for this?) a very blonde native Hawaiian (?) who is part Chinese, part Hawaiian and part God knows what else. She deserved a rewrite and a better agent. Since 2015, she has landed better parts.

Now as you know the now-famous movie gunslinger Alec Baldwin has some gun trouble, but here he is aboard this group in 2015, as a grumpy general. Baldwin went on to bigger real life trouble and finally had redemption in 2024.

In fact, almost everyone in this film has gone on to better things.

Just pay attention to the facts at hand. A suspicious spacecraft, with an even more suspicious load aboard, is in this script, as an important part of the U.S. space program in Honolulu, Hawaii. I’m betting that you didn’t know such a strange program was going on in Hawaii. I didn’t either, but it all unfolds happily in the end with everybody happy … except for Bill Murray running away down Waikiki Beach. Thanks for listening.

“Aloha” streams on Netflix and is rated PG-13, in case that’s important to you at a time when an election will change America, including Hawaii, forever.

J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.