Fly Me to the Moon review: "Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum's sassy NASA rom-com fulfils its mission to entertain"
Jul. 9, 2024Despite leaving its love affair on the launch pad, this sassy NASA romcom fulfils its mission to entertain.
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Two of the biggest stars in cinema’s firmament shoot for the moon in this jaunty if somewhat overstuffed space-race romcom. A sparky Scarlett Johansson plays rule-bending advertising maven Kelly Jones, who’s hired to ‘market the moon’ to an uninterested America, putting her on a collision course with NASA’s workaholic launch director Cole Davis (a straight-shooting Channing Tatum).
A pleasingly big picture, both in its expansive visuals and its story scope, Fly Me to the Moon takes off rapidly once Woody Harrelson’s cheerfully devious White House fixer Moe Berkus has booted Kelly off Madison Avenue and into Cape Canaveral’s vast rocket hangers, where Cole wrestles with NASA’s underfunded, breakage-plagued moonshot program.
One of her savviest moves is making astronauts Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins ‘bigger than the Beatles’ through relentless TV exposure, until all the licensing (Omega watches, Rice Krispies) rains money into the moonshot program. Kelly’s got the kind of smiley ruthlessness that will swap Cole for an actor doppelganger in news footage if he refuses to play ball.
As a female striver in the ’60s, Johansson keeps Kelly unashamedly flirty at work and play, teaching the reluctant Cole how to manipulate arrogant senators into voting for vital NASA funding. Her disruptor energy and perky period frocks add a shot of Mad Men raciness to the film’s tone, punched up by seamless use of TV news footage, Moon-themed 60s soundtrack hits, and Harrelson’s God-given ability to steal every scene he enters with his “The President wants this” swagger and shit-eating grin.
Berlanti works hard to blend a range of moods into the film, its lively LOLs tempered with some melancholy secrets that both Cole and Kelly are keeping. But his knack for combining an intimate story nimbly with a historic event doesn’t quite last the course. Fly Me starts to drag a bit late on, from the sheer weight of winding real history, confected conspiracy and a fictional love affair together, and trying to keep it all airborne.
The aspect that needs more plot propellant is the surprisingly low-key romance. Johansson is at her husky-voiced best, but she and Tatum don’t have rocket-fuel-strength chemistry (the role was originally planned for Chris Evans, to ignite that spark their Marvel encounters showed off). They wind up creating a sweet and gentle simmer, rather than the explosive Hepburn/Tracy-style screwball energy needed to get this ambitious movie into high orbit.
Fly Me to the Moon is released in UK cinemas on July 11 and in US theaters on July 12.
Kate is a freelance film journalist and critic. Her bylines have appeared online and in print for GamesRadar, Total Film, the BFI, Sight & Sounds, and WithGuitars.com.
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