'Aloha': Trouble in paradise

NOT MUCH goes right in Bradley Cooper's new movie, but the title works - "Aloha" is the ideal name for a movie that doesn't know whether it's coming or going.

"Aloha" is, alas, the hot mess promised to us late last year, when the Korean hack that followed "The Interview" unveiled emails from Sony executives talking about "Aloha" as if it were an existential threat more terrifying than Kim Jong's nukes.

And to them, it was.

Sony chief Amy Pascal soon lost her job.

But not before her leaked emails warned the world that, somehow, the talents of Cameron Crowe, Cooper, Bill Murray and Emma Stone had yielded something almost unreleasable.

Almost.

"Aloha" is finally here, although it shows evidence of desperate tampering. Hollywood has apparently tried its usual method of "saving" the troubled movie - someone has taken "Aloha" into the editing booth with a chainsaw, handed the chainsaw to Stevie Wonder, given him five shots of bourbon and said have at it. (You'll see Jay Baruchel listed in the online credits, but you won't see him in the movie.)

Even cut to its most rudimentary form, the movie is difficult to explain, but here goes: Bradley Cooper stars as Brian, an ex-military hotshot in Hawaii to broker a deal with locals to pave the way for the launch of a mysterious satellite funded by his billionaire boss (Bill Murray).

The real movie, though, involves Brian's lingering feelings for an old flame (Rachel McAdams), now married to a handsome pilot (John Krasinski), and Brian's new feelings for the straight-laced military liaison (Emma Stone) assigned to shadow him on behalf of top military brass (Alec Baldwin).

Some of this plays to Crowe's strengths. The director of "Jerry Maguire," "Almost Famous" and "Say Anything," specializes in heartfelt stories about cross-wired romances.

In "Aloha," Brian is The Guy Who Blew It, and shares a few good scenes with McAdams - old flames standing in a kitchen, the kids and husband in another room, alone except for their still flickering feelings.

These feelings fade, though, as Brian starts to fall for his minder, played by Stone. Her chemistry with Cooper is more problematic. The drastic editing of "Aloha" has left us with no scenes to explain her character's sudden and unshakable attraction to Brian, who initially treats her with unrelenting, boorish disdain.

Some of "Aloha" recalls Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" - the idea of Hawaii as the paradise we've lost, to greed and lousy stewardship.

Crowe, though, may have another model in mind. There's a "Casablanca" reference, and we remember that Brian is the cynic who finds an old love married to another man.

"I've seen it all, it's all for sale," says Brian, but the line feels thin, and grainy flashbacks to his mercenary past in Afghanistan don't help sell his world-weary disillusionment.

The movie is made moderately more interesting via its proximity to last week's "Tomorrowland." Both are the work of NASA-mourning boomer directors dealing with a lost sense of the optimism they felt as kids in the 1960s.

Crowe, though, is far less enthralled than Brad Bird by the prospect of unfettered capitalist tycoons. Murray's character is sinister, self-serving and arrogant.

"Speak to me in subservient English," he demands, toward the end of "Aloha," when this would-be comedy finally gets a laugh.

Online: ph.ly/Movies