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

NOTE: All ent. content will go online immediately once edited

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.

Copy the Story Link

Tweet

Transformers One beautifully tells a classic origin story between two legendary characters in the Transformers universe, Orion Pax and D-16, and their early friendship on their planet, Cybertron. If you somehow don’t know these names or the promoted premise, avoid the advertising and let it be a nice surprise, though you will probably guess before the reveal. The dramatic story buildup, the twists and betrayals, and the character revelations combined with the animation were all so good that I at one point had a tear or two rolling down my face, though there is plenty of action and comedy as well. Even without Peter Cullen voicing Optimus, this was One of the best Transformers movies I have ever seen.

Unlike the live-action Transformers of the last two decades, Transformers One is set entirely on their home planet, Cybertron, with no humans to take focus away from the Transformers (while this was not necessarily a bad thing in those movies, it is a nice change of pace). At first, our main protagonists do not have the ability to transform effectively making them lower-class citizens who are relocated to working long hours mining for Energon (their primary source of energy). Orion Pax has dreams of being more and his best friend D-16 joins Orion on his adventures, whether he likes it or not. After brief highs and lows, the pair venture out of the city, along with former/coworkers/reluctant allies B-127 and Elita, to the largely desolate planet looking for a lost artifact, but what they find changes their relationship, their status, and the fate of the whole planet.

The world-building story is amazing. If you have never seen anything Transformers-related, you will have no problem watching this movie. There are easter eggs and nods to the franchise, however there is enough exposition to be able to enjoy this as a stand-alone film, while at the same time it is not so much information that it feels too dense or overwhelming. A few plot points are predictable, even more so if you know the characters and/or have seen other movies (not just other Transformer movies). Nonetheless, this character-driven story is excellent and well told by the voice actors and animators.

Speaking of the voice actors, they were all good choices to play their respective characters. Chris Hemsworth plays Orion and Brian Tyree Henry plays D-16. Side note: Henry is the only main actor’s voice I didn’t recognize, but after looking at his filmography, I should have (he has been in two Godzilla/Kong films, The Eternals, and the Spiderverse movies). I immediately recognized Laurence Fishburne, and it made me happy that he got to say “The Matrix” quite a few times (not the same Matrix, obviously, but it was still fun to hear). For the second movie in a row (following The Killer’s Game), there is an MCU reunion since Scarlett Johansson plays Elita. And Keegan-Michael Key is hilarious as B-127.

Okay, enough stargazing. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and would highly recommend it to all audiences of all ages. It is fun, thrilling, funny, and emotionally engaging. Even if you know where the story is headed (which is highly likely given the premise and promotion), the story is so well told that it still packs an emotional punch once it reaches its climax.

Latest posts by Bradley Smith (see all)

Movie origin stories finally reach their nadir this week with “Transformers One,” the super-violent, toy-selling vehicle that tells the tale of how Optimus Prime and Megatron went from besties to foes. Did anyone ask for this? Did Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner ask for too much money?

The computer-animated “Transformers One” is out of time, a throwback to a few years ago when Hollywood mined popular IP for forgotten heroes, built overly complex worlds and then ramped up the action so that the audience just got numbed to a blur of battles. But “Transformers One” isn’t good enough to watch on a plane, even a trans-Pacific flight. The inflight map is better.

A map isn’t a bad idea, actually: You may need some sort of guide for this one — those uninitiated to the folklore of Cybertron are flung helplessly into references to Energon, Alpha Trion, Quintessons and something called the Matrix of Leadership. You come in halfway into a conversation.

Advertisement

The story by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari is basically the Bible’s Cain and Abel with a detour into the Roman Empire and the Hasbro figurines’ accumulated mythology, which seems to be a series of never-ending epic battles between good and evil. Some stuff just seems downright weird, like why these robots need a gym or why after running they become breathless.

The main heroes here are buddies Orion Pax and D-16 — who will become mortal enemies Optimus Prime and Megatron by the end — and we meet them when they are lowly miners, basically non-transforming bots digging for reserves of the energy cleverly called Energon. This is a society in which the upper class is made up of Transformers who stomp around preening while the lower classes do dirty jobs like comb through garbage.

They all serve Sentinel Prime, the leader of the subterranean Iacon City, who is not what he seems. He is apparently the last of the Primes and lives in a marble palace, giving the people below spectacles as a diversion, like an epic road race. It gives off ancient Roman Coliseum vibes.

Orion Pax (voiced with puppy-dog sweetness by Chris Hemsworth) is not satisfied by this life. “There’s got to be something more I can do,” he says. “Aren’t you tired of being treated like you’re nothing?” Brian Tyree Henry voices D-16 with skepticism and resignation.

The two friends join with mining manager Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson, bland) and Keegan-Michael Key’s B-127 (who will later become fan favorite Bumblebee) to journey to the surface of the planet, find the Matrix of Leadership (a sort of necklace that might have been sold in the Sharper Image catalog) and get a hero’s welcome. But they learn some unsavory things about the ruler from the Transformer elder statesman Alpha Trion (the instantly recognizable Laurence Fishburne).

Advertisement

Director Josh Cooley, who co-wrote the screenplay for “Inside Out” and helmed “Toy Story 4,” never lets the action stop — and that’s not a compliment. The camera is constantly swiveling and the violence — assault-weapon lasers, booming cannons, light torture, martial arts crunching moves, beating a rival with their own amputated limb and ceaseless pounding — is nauseating. (“Please stop punching me in the face” is a joke line here.) If Transformers ever bled, this would be an R-rated movie.

The hyper-violence papers over some pretty robotic — sorry! — dialogue. Why do all these movies show the Transformers with cool upgrades like laser knives but they remain speaking in stilted, operatic prose? “I want him to suffer and die in darkness,” “They are to be your undoing” and “Cybertron’s future is in your hands.”

There are some good moments, of course. When our band of misfit bots get an upgrade to Transformer status, they cutely don’t know how to do it seamlessly at first, with limbs awkwardly getting mixed with vehicle parts. Anyone who has played with the toys knows the feeling. And Key never fails to generate a chuckle, proving a masterful comedic voice actor.

Advertisement

The other actors — Jon Hamm and Steve Buscemi, included — hardly register and the movie’s main song — “If I Fall” by Quavo, Ty Dolla $ign and Brian Tyler’s Are We Dreaming — feels like AI wrote both the uninteresting rap-rock beat and soupy lyrics (“I’m the alpha, omega, got lights on me, Vegas.” Vegas?)

The saddest thing about “Transformers One” is the wastefulness of another dull outing in a universe geared toward kids just learning to transform themselves. The lessons here, unfortunately, are that friends can become enemies overnight and you only win if you beat someone hard enough. “We’re better than this,” Orion Pax screams at his sudden rival at one point. No, they’re not.

“Transformers One,” a Paramount release that lands in theaters Friday, is rated PG for “sci-fi violence and animated action throughout, and language.” Running time: 103 minutes. Half a star out of four.