‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Is a Sad, Silly, Over-Produced Disappointment

At a sorry time when most movies are about nothing, Fly Me to the Moon, a rom-com set in the chaos and cross purposes of the heroic Apollo 11 moon landing, deserves attention because even though it is a sad, silly, over-produced disappointment, at least it’s about something. Not very much, I’m afraid, but something.

The fatal tragedy that killed the astronauts in the deadly Apollo 1 disaster in 1961 so devastated the world that by the time NASA was ready to launch Apollo 11 in 1969, public enthusiasm had waned and Congress was reluctant to continue the financing. Underfunded and understaffed, the future of the space program was in serious jeopardy, but President Richard Nixon was so desperate to beat the Russians and get the first man on the moon that he dispatched one of his goons to hire a public relations expert to jazz up NASA’s public image. In this ambitious cinema confection with political icing, a nefarious Nixon puppet played with customary duplicitous charm by Woody Harrelson hires a fast-talking Madison Avenue con artist named Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), who is such a great combination market specialist and scam artist that she could sell ice cubes to the Eskimos. Before you can say “Mad Men,” she’s put NASA on the map, to the disgust and consternation of Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), the Apollo 11 launch director, who craves dignity, professionalism and ethics over the vulgarity of advertising.

But with the approval and endorsement of Nixon, Kelly is in the catbird seat, with the power to run the program with her own personal philosophy that no commercial idea is too small, no technology too premature, and no expense too great. In record time, commerce triumphs over science as she finds endless ways to work Apollo 11 into every product endorsement from Peter Pan peanut butter to Fruit of the Loom underwear (well, she says, in outer space, even astronauts have to wear something). In the dynamics of this contrived narrative, she puts NASA on the map, he wants to put her six feet under, and because this is, above all, a glamorous rom-com with two beautiful people, while they’re fighting, they’re also falling in love. It’s not a bad formula for romance, but it has such severe narrative limitations it runs out of energy before the epic space vessel leaves the ground. “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” You can say that again.

Eventually, Fly Me to the Moon loses its grip on the viewer’s concentration and falls apart when the Nixon stooge forces Kelly to stage a phony alternative moon landing on a sound stage to beat the Russians at claiming the first moon landing in case the actual Apollo 11 event goes wrong. The exaggerated limp-wristed eccentric Kelly hires to direct this farce (played by Jim Rash) is not as amusing a character as the movie intends, but the uneven, overwritten screenplay by Rose Gilroy does get a few laughs when the three actors hired to play astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins have problems remembering their lines. Director Greg Berlanti interjects so many conflicting subplots that they crash into each other faster than TV test pilot rewrites, resulting in uneven pacing. Scarlett Johansson is gorgeous despite the hideous blonde wigs she’s forced to wear, but every scene guarantees her unconventional love. No matter what she does in her playbook to outwit, humiliate or mow down every other character to get her own way, they all end up loving her anyway. Even the launch director sacrifices his values to surrender to her sex appeal. Together, the two stars lack maximum charisma, the love story almost disappears from whole sections of the film, and clocking in at 2 hours and 12 minutes, it’s all much too long. I could also do without the corny ploy of using “Destination Moon”, Henry Mancini’s “Moon River”, Bart Howard’s “Fly Me to the Moon” and other moon songs, but at least they got the year right.

What I liked most about Fly Me to the Moon was the way it mixes fact and fantasy with mixed results, but an overriding basis in reality, including the fake moon landing. Fact: In 1969, when millions of people watched the U.S. announce victory as the first country to land on the moon, the Russians claimed the footage of the astronauts on the lunar surface was staged by Hollywood. It all ends with Walter Cronkite saying, “This day will live in history!” And it will, even if the movie will not.