Aloha Heart

This could have been a much better movie, but what was the casting department thinking? Taylor is turning 40 and I saw Kanoa recently in a show playing a teenager. I am all for older ladies finding love with younger men but I don't think that was Hallmark's intention. Perhaps they think we won't notice. This was also done in Love in Zion and again, it spoiled the movie. The setting here was lovely, and some environmental concerns were included in the story, but the movie just did not work with this pairing. Taylor deserves better. She is a popular female lead and always good in her roles. I wish they had made more of the Ruby Herring series. Those were great and Taylor was paired with the very handsome (and age appropriate) Steven Huszar. Their connection and chemistry was obvious in that series, but not evident at all in this movie. And Kanoa will be a great addition to the younger male leads but let's pair him with a believable partner. This won't be on my "watch again" list.

First, I wish I had a shot at someone as beautiful as 39 year old Taylor Cole when I was 25 (the age of Kanoa Goo who plays her love interest). She's absolutely stunning and a magnetic performer. Manu was very lucky to have Sara show an interest in him. And this just in- not every relationship needs to lead to marriage.

Many successful mainstream romance movies have featured far more dramatic age gaps between the leads when the male is the older actor. For example, Richard Gere was 40 and Julia Roberts was just 22 in "Pretty Woman." He was still 18 years older than her when they starred in "Runaway Bride." And he was 26 years older than Winona Ryder when they made "Autumn in New York." Catherine Zeta-Jones was just 28 when she filmed "Entrapment" with a 67 year old Sean Connery. Jack Nicholson was 60 when he starred opposite 34 year old Helen Hunt in "As Good As It Gets". Cary Grant was 17 years older than his costar Deborah Kerr in "An Affair to Remember." Humphrey Bogart was 17 years older than Ingrid Bergman in the classic "Casablanca." Tom Cruise was at least 20 years older than his last two love interests in the last 2 Mission Impossible movies.

And Leonardo DiCaprio famously only dates women half his age. The list of male stars who do the same is long. So what's wrong with a younger male being attracted to an older female and vice versa? The better question might be who puts a 25 year old in charge of a lush high end beachfront resort hotel in Hawaii?

Manu is supposedly the manager of his family's hotel and yet he's usually off playing with Sara. Or standing around looking concerned or confused. And she's there for a destination wedding, but spends more of her time with Manu instead of the bride and her bridesmaids.

The script also overplays the ecologist angle. I support efforts to combat climate change and develop more sustainable energy sources but Sara is, initially at least, painted as a bit of a caricature. And it was never really clear what she was supposed to do to help Manu run the hotel. Build a desalination plant? Buy him more electric golf carts?

It's all very lovely to look at, but the story didn't really support more than a vacation hookup. And Hallmark isn't in the business of making movies about anything less than Big Love. That's not what we got here in the few days these two knew each other.

The movie has so much potential with the magnificent scenery and the backdrop of a wedding on the horizon, but the main actress was so annoying it got in the way of the movie taking on a more romantic special feel. It would have been better if they fell in love scene by scene as opposed to her pricking at the actor every 3 minutes for most of the movie. WOW, this was an annoying movie. It was hard to watch and certainly re-watch. Is this a Hallmark movie plot recipe where the woman nags the guy until they magically fall in love? How unrealistic. If this wasn't filmed in Hawaii, I'd probably drop the movie rating to 3 stars.

6.5 stars.

It's not a bad film really. The plot is good enough to keep an audience around and the scenery is breathtaking. It's about an ecologist who is of course very very adamant about the environment and all that good stuff. There are some glaring inconsistencies. First of all, she is complaining about the gas powered automobiles, but then again she flies all around the world throughout the year. If she was truly an environmentalist, she would take a rowboat. Let's face it, you cannot be an eco-activist without hypocrisizing everything. The male actor does a good job and I liked his acting style. There are some pretty mundane scenes and it doesn't take much intelligence to follow 'Aloha Heart', but somehow there is an entertaining aspect to it. The acting is not bad. Who knows, but it was enough to raise my rating from a dismal 5.5 up to a 6.5.

Hawaii is definitely the star of Aloha Heart.

Hallmark knows how to sell destination movies even with the weakest storylines-sad to say, this one's pretty weak. Watching it now and I swear they stole the Hawaii wedding plot line from Hallmark's Hidden Gem movie-also filmed in Hawaii. At least the lead actors were around the same age and had great chemistry.

Not the case here. Taylor Cole is a wonderful actor but too mature for the male lead of this movie even with the long hair extensions.

Hallmark has a problem with their popular leading ladies-they're all hitting forty and over and can't sell being the young professional -fill in the blank-trying to get that big promotion. When they do that they end up doing what Taylor Cole is doing in this movie-trying to act younger than she is.

And Hallmark needs to sign Kanou Goo. He's a keeper.