Fly Me To the Moon (2024)
A small percentage of Americans believe NASA faked the moon landing. They think it was all filmed. How in the world are we able to see Neil Armstrong descend the LEM ladder if he was really the first man to step foot on the Sea of Tranquility? Someone had to be down there already.
Fly Me To the Moon answers all of those questions, albeit in a highly fictionalized way. It’s both a tribute to the Apollo program and a fun look at a time that’s long gone, with plenty of little nods to the people who made these moon landings happen, plus a lot of homage to classic screwball comedies. Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson dance around each other a lot and manage to cobble together something that resembles romance.
Kelly Jones is full of blarney, mostly on the flimflam side if needed. She can walk into a room, seemingly very pregnant, and convince board executives at Ford to back a certain new model. On the elevator out of the building, she pulls the pregnancy pillow out of her blouse and smiles at the shocked faces around her. She’s got a box full of wedding rings that she picks from depending on what part she’s playing. She’s great at making things happen. She’s also great at disappearing if need be, taking assumed names and never telling anyone who she really is.
Meanwhile, at NASA, launch director Cole Davis is trying to keep the Apollo program alive. They’re at risk of losing their funding because the public seems to be uninterested in the space program. Cole is haunted by the deaths of the Apollo 1 crew, which he blames on himself, and figures he owes it to them to keep going. He’s also a regular visitor at Launchpad 34, where the accident happened.
Kelly and Cole meet when Kelly is hired by a Federal agent named Moe, who makes a deal with her: If she can help bring NASA some good publicity, she can get a full pardon for all the fraud she’s committed. Kelly is up to the challenge, but naturally, Cole has to get used to having her around. And she’s always around.
Cole and Kelly’s biggest challenge is getting Apollo 11 to the moon; Cole for real, and Kelly for fake. Just in case, of course. The Russians mustn’t see that the Americans are losing steam in the space race, so Kelly has to have a very convincing mockup at the ready if something goes wrong.
Fly Me To the Moon is enjoyable and moves quickly. It really does a fine job at recreating what it would have been like to work at NASA in the nineteen-sixties, aided by real NASA veterans who were brought on as technical advisors.
Another player in the Apollo landings is very much in evidence. When Kelly unveils the new advertising deals she’s made to help NASA’s image, and one of them is for Omega watches. These watches were all over the movie, probably because the company gave them some money, plus Buzz Aldrin is still a spokesperson, not to mention Omega Speedmaster watches were worn by astronauts during missions, including the Apollo 11 landing.
The watches weren’t worn because they looked cool, though, although they do—the design and features held up well in space and were used by the astronauts in their work.
Now, there are quite a few inaccuracies in the film, some of them pretty laughable. For one thing, it shows Mission Control watching the Apollo 11 launch through some windows at the front of the room, which definitely did not happen because Mission Control doesn’t have any windows. Oh, and Mission Control is in Houston, not Cape Canaveral.
For another, there was still a lot of excitement around the moon landing by the time Apollo 11 came up and NASA had no trouble generating publicity. It wasn’t until Apollos 12 and 13 that the public began to get bored, but even then, NASA was always very committed to educating the public about space travel. Fly Me To the Moon omits this little fact because the story had to shoehorn Kelly in there somehow.
There’s also no record of NASA filming an alternate version of the moon landing or faking the landing itself. In fact, it’s generally thought that it would have been impossible to do so.
In the end, though, Fly Me To the Moon is a great piece of work that I hope raises curiosity for real answers about one of the greatest adventures in history. The performances by everyone involved are a nice bonus. Just don’t take anything too seriously.
Fly Me To the Moon is currently in theaters. Rated PG-13.
My grade: B
Principal Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Woody Harrelson, Jim Rash, Ray Romano, Peter Jacobson, Christian Clemenson, Colin Woodell, Kylee Nicole Peck, Anna Garcia, Joe Chrest, Greg Kriek, Noah Robbins, Bill Barrett, Alex Veadov, Tim Ware, Art Newkirk, Kelsi Macaluso
Directed by Greg Berlanti.
Written by Keenan Flynn, Rose Gilroy, and Bill Kirstein.