Aloha

Alohuh?

If you came here hoping to learn a little more about what Aloha is about, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have no clue. The only thing I do know is director Cameron Crowe was pretty dedicated to bringing Hawaiian culture to the screen, though that doesn’t at all explain his choice in an almost all-white cast. The film probably worked on a purely conceptual level, but when it came time to put all the disparate ideas together, it seems everyone involved said aloha and decided to just enjoy the islands instead. You should too.

The film is light on Hawaiian scenery but heavy with the culture – there’s a lot of exposition to showcase various Hawaiian traditions, like mana and hula dancing. Despite this, the most thought-provoking thing about the movie is how so many big name stars signed on, including Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone, two of this year’s Academy Award nominees. They couldn’t have been interested in the script, which was immediately disengaging and tried to balance multiple, completely unrelated plot threads at once.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

“There are no strings on me.”

You sure about that Ultron? Because even though you were marketed as Marvel’s answer to an overall lame roster of movie villains, you still failed to shake up any long-held expectations about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Actually, nothing about this movie did. It delivered more of what Marvel has been doing for eleven films now, which is by no means a bad thing. The franchise is one of my personal favorites. However, Age of Ultron did make it painfully obvious that the series is cautious to break away from its tried-and-true formula that we’ve seen almost a dozen times now, when this deep into the franchise, a little change may feel welcome. Ultron is more tied down than he thinks he was.

Still, the movie is packed with a heaping portion of the action-and-explosions goodness that fans have come to expect. Even Ultron, the creepy robot king (voiced by James Spader) is satisfyingly freaky and intimidating, until he’s not. Spader’s impeccable voice acting could outmatch director and writer Joss Whedon’s cringe-worthy writing of the character.