From first inspiration to opening credits, a movie can undergo a shocking amount of transformation. Early drafts get binned. New writers are brought on. Attached stars drop out. One director leaves the project, and another one arrives with an entirely different vision. Through the gauntlet, every Hollywood production must go; the lucky ones that make it all the way to the multiplex bear the creative prints, mostly invisible, of so many cooks in the kitchen.
Which is all to say, Fly Me to the Moon’s own course from script to screen doesn’t seem especially troubled, along the way trading one bankable male star for another and switching one well-regarded director best known for his work in TV, Jason Bateman, for another one, Greg Berlanti. How then to explain the film’s utter tonal confusion, the wibble-wobbling effect it produces – in its marketing leadup and final form, both – and, weirder yet, that it somehow manages to mostly ingratiate itself?
Set in the late Sixties, Fly Me to the Moon zeroes in on NASA at a low ebb. The space program is still reeling from the catastrophic fire that killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts. That tragedy is essential to the story – it informs the conflict and establishes the stakes – but the questionable decision to dramatize it, mid-opening credits and on the heels of some zippy split screens that make the space race seem like a real gas, marks the film’s first record scratch. (The second is a fireball gag mere minutes later.)
Launch Director Cole Davis (Tatum, emoting mostly via pursed lips) is a ball of nerves trying to get Apollo 11 on the moon before the Soviets can plant a flag first, with the added stress of Congress threatening to pull funding and the general public’s waning interest in NASA. Enter advertising wiz Kelly Jones (Johansson, also a producer), hired by Woody Harrelson’s mysterious Nixon operative and brought to NASA’s base in Florida to land lucrative ad deals to bankroll the mission and gin up interest in their literal moonshot. Despite having mostly aligned goals, Cole and Kelly butt heads, because this is what happens in romantic comedies.
But is this a romantic comedy? That’s what the trailers want you to think, and presumably the title change from the original Project Artemis (more on that later) to the plug-and-play Fly Me to the Moon was done for its lovey connotations, too. As a rom-com, it’s a bit of a shrug; Rose Gilroy’s screenplay is chuckling but no more, and the heat Johansson and Tatum generate couldn’t start a campfire, let alone achieve rocket launch. (My condolences to the Cap and Black Widow ‘shippers, who missed out on a more promising pairing when original star Chris Evans had to drop out.)
If not a rom-com, then what? Fly Me to the Moon plays too fast and loose with the facts to be a Hidden Figures-like historical crowd-pleaser, though you’re bound to walk away feeling warmly about NASA. It’s not broad enough for parody, despite some winkingness à la Down With Love (which, by the way, made much better use of the titular song). It doesn’t take itself seriously enough to pitch as a prestige picture, even with all that Apple Original Films money put to terrific use aping the era. It’s smart enough to gesture at current-day concerns – most especially in the dangers of a flexible relationship to truth – but not incisive or insightful enough to land a punch.
Ah, the T-word. Truth. Kelly, who’ll say anything to make a sale, is so comfortable lying I genuinely wondered if she was a psychopath, a thrilling prospect. (Sadly no – when Kelly catches feelings, she catches a conscience, yawn – but Johansson really is a crackling treat in the part.) The film seems to come down firmly on the side of Truth, not Lies, which is pretty hilarious considering it legitimizes an enduring conspiracy theory – that NASA faked the moon landing – and (spoiler here, folks) doubles down by marketing the movie as if it’s all about Kelly’s backup plan to produce moon landing footage in case the real one fails (the so-called Project Artemis), when in fact that subplot isn’t introduced until an hour into the movie. That’s wild, right?!
Or not. Like I said, Fly Me to the Moon doesn’t take itself very seriously, and in the end, neither did I.
This article appears in July 12 • 2024.
