★★ | Makes Armageddon look like a documentary
Fly Me to the Moon does so many things right that it only serves to highlight how dramatically it gets things wrong.
It stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum at their very aw-shucks-iest. The setting is one of the most romantic periods in scientific history, at a time when NASA engineers and astronauts were akin to rock stars. It’s funded by Apple, meaning the production isn’t wanting for anything.
For the first half-hour, it seems like the stars have aligned. Even after losing its original director (Jason Bateman). Fly Me to the Moon coasts on a breezy charm that is full of love for the space program. At least initially. I was enamored by the throwback nature and witty dialogue. Even if a part of me couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this entirely fictitious story didn’t need to be so, well, fictitious.
After all, the success of the moon landing is near fantastical already. It was a triumph of not just engineering in a traditional sense, but on a societal level. It utilized the most talented minds across America for a single-minded goal of getting the population behind an idea that was — at the time — pure fantasy. And it worked.
So for Fly Me to the Moon to not just fictionalize that endeavor, but to suggest the moon landing could have been faked had NASA wanted to, reeks of poor judgement. At least in its current form. In the hands of a great satirist, who knew precisely what they wanted to skewer, it could work. But that is not the case here. Instead, Fly Me to the Moon is timid when it should be withering, as it attempts to appease everyone by cowering behind genre tropes when it matters most.
Johansson plays a con-artist turned marketing idol, who is hired by a shifty government agent (a terrible Woody Harrelson) to spruce up NASA’s image before the launch of Apollo 11. Tatum plays the head of Mission Control, but is a purely fictional creation. He and Johansson butt heads, play meet-cute, and eventually grow into better people in the face of something greater than themselves.
Which means the moon landing, the space program, and the achievements of hundreds of thousands are all set dressing for a traditional rom-com. Only this time, said rom-com also dares to suggest that it was all out of their hands anyway, and the moon landing itself is only good for bringing two people together.
For the rest of the two plus hours, we’re treated to every genre convention and gimmick in the book. There’s even a magical cat that appears to help out our heroes when the plot calls for it.
The more I think about Fly Me to the Moon, the less I like it. While it is a handsomely crafted production, and director Greg Berlanti’s journeyman direction rarely makes an impact one way or another, the end result feels off-putting. Especially since the first thirty minutes are genuinely good.
As the film builds from that foundation, it escalates the slapstick to such a degree that everyone turns into caricatures. NASA engineers are out of touch weirdos who go googly-eyed at the sight of a pretty lady. Everyone from the south is a cartoonish bible thumper. Tatum is both devoutly religious, yet profoundly brilliant, and also a war veteran himbo. Johansson has a deep, dark background the film plays coy with for most of the runtime. By the time it’s revealed, it is so insignificant I felt cheated for caring about it in the first place.
I kept waiting for a twist, a zinger, a hook. Anything to indicate the film was in on the joke. That this fantasy was spun to make a grander point about anything. It toys with so many thematic strands that someone, at some point, must have recognized the potential. But Fly Me to the Moon doesn’t do any of that and, in the end, it settles for the most milquetoast conclusions imaginable.
It makes the moon and the stars feel mundane and small, as fleeting and insignificant as the film itself.