REVIEW: ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ Is No Fake

Watching Space Race movies never gets old. All the sappy focus on human ingenuity and tenacity works because it all really happened. We really did land human beings on the moon in 1969. This is why the fascicle premise of Fly Me to the Moon, directed by Greg Berlanti and written by Rose Gilroy, Bill Kirstein, and Keenan Flynn, works so well. Poking fun at the well-trodden theory that the moon landing was faked gets woven with the thrill of the Apollo 11 mission from toe to tip. The movie is also a romance between Scarlett Johansson’s Kelly and Channing Tatum’s Cole. You can take or leave a lot of those parts depending on the scene. But when the movie’s firing on all cylinders, it’s a fun ride.

Kelly is an advertising con artist extraordinaire who is recruited by Woody Harrelson’s shady but charming government agent, Moe. Her mission: sell the moon to the American public. The only thing standing in her way is Cole Davis, NASA’s Launch Director for Apollo 11. He’s a no-nonsense Korean War pilot whose dedication to the mission’s success is matched only by his immediate soft spot for Kelly.

Fly Me to the Moon makes two very wise decisions very early on. It strips Cole of nearly all machismo, and it makes Cole and Kelly’s attraction to one another perfectly clear from the moment they meet. Not just to the audience, but to each other, out loud, in a rather funny show of Cole’s awkward charm.

The lack of machismo and the airing of attraction is essential because it lets the entire slightly too-long movie dabble in their romance without bogging down in useless will-they-won’t-they mishegoss. That’s not to say the movie lacks pining or relationship woes. It just means we can watch these two indomitable forces duke it out or flirt without first hating either of them.

Cole is the emotional core of the movie. His motivations are a little cheesy at times, and sure, patriotism is passé. But his success as the Launch Director is all of our success. And Kelly is the main character. So while it would be nice if she felt like she had a little more of her own motivations besides “don’t upset the government” and “don’t let the man I like find out I’m a lier,” Kelly’s success is our success just as much as Cole’s.

And both actors are given ample opportunities to do what they do best. Johansson’s performance is immediately reminiscent of her early Coen brothers’ energy. She’s fast-talking and commands every conversation with her wit and charm. Tatum is mostly quiet, but his comedic timing is sharp. Whenever the two are babbling back and forth with each other, the chemistry is solid. Even the frequent ironic quips about feminism or politics land solid laughs every time. The movie knows how to balance its humor with its space-based sincerity.

But when things turn emotional between Kelly and Cole, the movie turns very dry. None of it feels sincere. The dialogue is too overstuffed with meager exposition, and the acting is stiff. These portions of the movie make up a good chunk of the runtime, but at least they’re nearly always truncated by a joke or one of the movie’s several cameos and side characters, including ones played by Jim Rash and Ray Romano. You’d like a romance movie to have more successful romantic moments, but at least the funny ones mostly compensate.

It’s a small thing on-screen, but Fly Me to the Moon is momentous for its imagined history of 1969. The movie prominently features multiple actors of color in significant and background roles and directly references a character’s queerness. Neither of these circumstances was likely typical for the time or setting.

However, the movie does not mention these characters’ race or sexuality. These people simply exist as they are, allowing audiences to see these kinds of characters and actors in a type of movie that would typically never include such diversity on account of “reality.” But reality stinks and, for most of history, has been exceptionally exclusionary, so these seamless acts of inclusion are significant.

From a technical standpoint, Fly Me to the Moon is a bit of a mixed bag. The opening sequence with Kelly possesses some dizzying jump cuts back and forth between speakers. Because they all talk so fast, it’s uncomfortable to watch. The cuts slow down a tad as the movie goes on, but there are at least a few that jump so fast you can see the actors completely change positions between cuts. On the other hand, the movie employs a rather dynamic camera that breathes life into many scenes. The camera movement doesn’t always compliment a scene, but when it does, it’s a fun trick.

Visually, the movie is all over the place. The real sets all look great, but the rampant use of CGI is upsetting—bordering on offensive. The movie sports a cat that looks and feels pretty real but then can’t bother to get a real alligator on set, so a heinous CGI pair walks by instead. There are many scenes where they’re setting up the fake moon landing set, but when we get a shot of the actual moon lander on the moon, it looks utterly fake. It’s not fun watching a movie all about meticulously creating a fake moon landing only to see fake footage that stands out horribly from what’s real.

You can’t stitch in real footage of Apollo 11 launching 30 minutes after you showed a CGI Apollo 10. Why not employ miniatures and try to match the style between the two scenes? It feels cheap and fake whenever you see obvious CGI objects or backgrounds immediately juxtaposed in the next scene by real sets.

Nonetheless, Fly Me to the Moon is enjoyable. Not just because the Space Race is exciting. The premise is witty, the humor is well-balanced, and the characters are all fun, as long as they’re not getting too sincere. The chemistry between Tatum and Johansson is hot and cold, just like the movie’s technical aspects. But when Fly Me to the Moon is flying, it’s flying high.

Fly Me to the Moon is in theaters everywhere July 12th.