Jason Momoa's passion project loses it way

Nearly everything written about Chief Of War — the new series set in 18th century Hawaii for which Honolulu-born Jason Momoa was a creator, writer, director and star — has referred to the show as a passion project.

- MIKE HALE

And for about four minutes, at the show's beginning, it feels like one.

The camera glides along brilliant blue water, trailing a skeletal catamaran. We hear wind, waves and the slap of paddles. Momoa towers over the paddlers, seemingly too big for the boat, before hurling himself into the water. Then — using a rope and a few flasks of numbing kava — he single-handedly catches a shark.

It’s a lovely and disarming scene, one that makes clever use of Momoa’s hulking physique against the dramatic backdrops of land and sea. And there isn’t another scene like it in the season’s nine episodes. There are moments of impressive violence and satisfying melodrama. But what starts like a passion project settles into work as usual.