‘Fly Me to the Moon’: Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum Work Overtime To Fuel Dueling Storylines

Alci Rengifo

A movie like “Fly Me to the Moon” has the potential of sending audience members to the Internet to see if any of it is true. They might do so while watching the movie itself, which for some reason runs 132 minutes. The culprit is that “Fly Me to the Moon” is essentially two ideas fighting for space. One is a rom-com using the Apollo 11 moon mission as its backdrop. The other is a screwball comedy playing around with the idea that the U.S. government was willing to fake its historic lunar mission in case something went wrong. On their own both concepts have potential, if done right. Mashed together, it makes for a movie that is too long and offers too little.

Director Greg Berlanti starts “Fly Me to the Moon” by harnessing the feel of “Mad Men,” with advertising executive Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) presenting her work in misogynistic board rooms. Her ideas are indeed so good that she is soon approached by Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), an operative for the Nixon White House who tasks Kelly with helping NASA sell the American people on the necessity of a moon landing. After arriving in Florida with assistant Ruby (Anna Garcia), Kelly has one of those nights at a dinner where she locks eyes with Cole Davis (Channing Tatum). He rambles that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. She clearly likes him. But the next day she discovers he is Cape Kennedy’s launch director. Cole is not too keen on having an ad person nosing around a restricted area. Both are soon clashing. This is all before Moe tells Kelly she is needed for an even riskier, classified scheme.

“Fly Me to the Moon” is largely fictitious, even without the fake lunar landing angle. Kelly and Cole are inventions based on how NASA did hire PR people to keep Americans interested in the space race, while Cole is based on real launch director Eugene Kranz. It shouldn’t matter and viewers who want more fact than fiction can watch excellent documentaries like “Moon Shot” or series such as “From the Earth to the Moon.” What works in this movie is its very look. Berlanti breezily re-creates 1969 with color schemes that look borrowed from “Down With Love.” It is fun to look at the recreations of the Saturn 5 rocket rumbling on its way to the launch pad. For a rom-com, the production (which was co-financed by Apple) doesn’t spare a cent on visual effects. The high point is the Apollo 11 launch itself, which is exciting, even if there has yet to be a movie that tops “Apollo 13.”

The rest are a few good jokes sprinkled all over an odd structure. Much of the first half deals with Kelly trying to convince Cole her advertising ideas will help the program, especially with certain congressmen who want to cut funding. We see a blitz of Kelly’s ideas using watch brands and of course, Tang. Cole, who remains haunted by the tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire that killed its crew during a test, hates how advertising requires plenty of lying. Kelly can fake any accent for any state. Johansson’s actual husband, Colin Jost, drops in as a hawkish senator who is convinced with drawings imagining Soviet lasers on the moon. Despite Cole clearly finding her and her methods unsavory, Kelly demands he take her out to dinner. But the build-up feels wobbly considering that strange diner scene where he fumbles like a shy high schooler. Johansson and Tatum aren’t given the material for building real chemistry or the tension of opposites attracting. Cole gives in too early, offering her plane rides before the real plot kicks in.

Moe pops back in to initiate the movie’s second half, which feels like an entirely different film. Once more, there’s funny material here. To direct the fake lunar landing, Kelly brings in Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash), a cocky film director who is a hilarious stereotype of the demanding auteur. No surprise that the dialogue keeps referencing Stanley Kubrick, long rumored by conspiracy obsessives of having actually faked the lunar landing. The rom-com is swept aside for new plotting that involves building a fake moon set, rehearsing with actors, and avoiding a black cat which keeps causing trouble around the set. There’s of course the moral dilemma of faking the moon landing when there’s a real mission clearly taking place. Moe’s reasoning, which is Nixon’s, is that it has to be done no matter what happens in space, because the U.S. must win at any cost. Somewhere there’s a better, edgier “Wag the Dog” satire hiding in the bloated script by Rose Gilroy. 

Some room is still found to squeeze in some side stories about Cole and the Apollo 1 fire and Kelly’s secretive past. When the whole movie climaxes with how the staged moon trip proceeds, you start thinking, “Wait, did they forget about the rom-com?” It sort of comes back. The romance is simply too tacked on, as if executives feared you can’t sell a movie with Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum unless they kiss. In theory they still could have to simply celebrate the moon landing, real or fake. Maybe a director’s cut can be done for both storylines. “Fly Me to the Moon” is not without potential, it just should have focused on what story it wanted to tell. Instead, the rocket runs out of fuel by the weight of two quirky genres fighting for the control stick. 

“Fly Me to the Moon” releases July 12 in theaters nationwide.