I have always been fascinated by the era of the Space Race and everything around it. From THE RIGHT STUFF which told the story about breaking the sound barrier leading to the first round of Americans trying to fly around the planet to APOLLO 13 which is one of the best movies ever made about three men trying to find their way home, I was always fascinated by the positive, multi-layered and competitive nature
I feel like there hasn’t been a movie on this topic in years, and the enjoyable FLY ME TO THE MOON is a fun, lighthearted comedy that has a lot of fun with the idea of the moon landings being faked and is a nice addition into this period piece of storytelling.
The premise is simple. A government supported plan to “fake” the moon landings as a backup to win the space race. It starts with marketer Kelly Jones (played very well here by Scarlett Johansson) who is hired to make a more positive spin on NASA after the last few moon attempts have not gone so well. She winds up meeting launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) at a diner as a “meet cute”, not knowing. There’s also the heavy here, played by Woody Harrelson, who insists on using the “Fake” footage instead of the real on-moon camera footage. A lot of conflict comes out of this and a real fun storyline progresses as the “fake” footage is all put together on a massive sound stage.
There have been decades of speculation as to whether or not we actually DID go to the moon and it’s a fun joke that is brought out to feature length here by filmmaker Greg Berlanti, writer Rose Gilroy and the team. The Kubrick references alone here are on point (though one character says that his 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was his only good picture up until that point. Did he NOT see DR. STRANGELOVE?) This isn’t a technically perfect movie; it does have that “Apple Originals” look like ARGYLLE did earlier this year, however this one has a much superior concept and love for the time period. I am very happy that Apple partnered with Sony to give this a release in cinemas, which is what it needs.
Both Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson are very good here in their own respective ways. I was a bit worried about a lack of chemistry at the start but once it picks up after the aforementioned meet-cute at a diner, I felt it worked well. One performance that surprised me was Ray Romano, who sheds a lot of his EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND persona and has some good comic relief here. Mention must also be given to Woody Harrelson who has quite a bit of comic relief on his own while also making you despise him at the same time.
While not perfect, FLY ME TO THE MOON is a lighthearted historical dramedy that is refreshing for the summer movie season of sequels and remakes. While it will likely be on Apple+ in a short amount of time after the lackluster first weekend of box office, it’s still worth seeking out.
FLY ME TO THE MOON is now playing in theatres.