Fly Me to the Moon

Directed by Greg Berlanti

Written by Rose Gilroy, Bill Kirstein, Keenan Flynn

It’s the height of the space race as NASA’s Apollo program races the Soviet Union to the moon. But the American people are losing interest. The answer, NASA needs marketing. So when shady government agent Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), makes ad exec Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) an offer she, literally, cannot turndown, she heads to Florida. Where she must up the programmes popularity, help generate funds and win over programme director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), who does not need marketing in the way of delivering the most complex challenge in human history. All while Berkus demands she delivers the guarantee of the perfect moon footage!

This is hard film to call. The Apollo missions are an incredible piece of human ingenuity and this celebrates that, while also having a bit of fun. But you have to tread carefully with the subject matter and a missed step can be easily made. And this is where Fly Me to the Moon stumbles.

It gets lots right. Tatum and Scarlett Johansson are enjoyable screen presences and there’s a great chemistry between them. Harrelson blends fun and sinister in the way he does. Ray Romano, Jim Rash and Anna Garcia all offer good support.

It also looks and sounds great, the recreation of the time, place and excitement of the Apollo are pitch perfect.

But there is, for me, a big missed step. It’s not the idea of the conspiracy but rather the use of the tragedy of Apollo 1 as a half baked plot point. It’s felt very unnecessary in what is , basically, a light hearted caper. And it lost me at that stage. Which was a real pity, all the fun that had worked earlier then began to grate. Which was a real pity.

Fly Me to the Moon was, for its first half, really enjoyable. But then, for me made a misstep, that made all the fun things begin to grate. Which was a pity, because up to then it had lots to enjoy. Great chemistry between its leads, it looked great and was fun. If, what was a misstep for me doesn’t bother you, you’ll enjoy this. But it spoiled it for me.