Cameron Crowe may have made his name twenty years ago with hits like Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous, but since those heady days it's been a textbook case of diminishing returns. Introducing, Aloha, his latest romantic-comedy-drama-corporate-military-thriller which is, in point of fact, none of these things.

Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper – American Sniper) is a soldier turned contractor now working from a military base in Hawaii. Assigned to look after the interests of tycoon Carson Welch (Bill Murray – St Vincent) who plans launching a satellite from the island, he negotiates between affected locals, the military (led by Alec Baldwin in full shout mode – Still Alice), his ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams - About Time) and his new girlfriend, airforce watchdog Allison Ng (a hyperactive Emma Stone – Magic in the Moonlight).

Aloha is a catalogue of failure from a director who should know better: mixing romantic comedy with a military thriller speaks directly of a script that can't make its mind up. Lead roles run the gamut from indifferent to over-wrought while others are left to fall back on oft-seen schtick which has no place here. Toss in a relentless greatest hits soundtrack (yes Cameron, we know you once worked for Rolling Stone and have a fabulous iTunes library, enough already) and you end up with a mélange – or is that blancmange - of a film overstuffed with noodlings and doodlings dressed up as ideas. There's nothing as bold as a coherent plot, nor anything as satisfying as a coherent theme.

We're left with a loose assortment of scenes strung together by distraction that limp toward an utterly, utterly ridiculous close. Perhaps that was intended as the comic part, or maybe the thrill, of the aforementioned romantic-comedy-drama-corporate-military-thriller. Come the big reveal, it no longer mattered as most theatre patrons were halfway out of their seats and heading for the door. Aloha indeed.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Hoyts Cinemas, Entertainment Quarter, Sydney, on 29 May 2015