Fly Me to the Moon | Review

★★

The world changed forever in July 1969. Or, perhaps, it didn’t. If you go in for that sort of thing. An extraordinary number of people still do it would seem, with conspiracy no less ripe in 2024 – six human moon landings later – than fifty-five years ago. Possibly more in the age of rampantly untempered social media. It’s from such cynicism that Fly Me to the Moon fuels its launch into limited ambition. The film started out as a streaming project and will prove circular in that regard. Certainly, there little extra to the terrestrial here.

When looking, for instance, for era-spiration, Fly Me to the Moon leans closer to small screen stylings of Mad Men than the dramatic weight of Damien Chazelle’s First Man, against which its Neil Armstrong (Nick Dillenburg) feels comically inadequate. The role’s a small one. The real star is, instead, Scarlett Johansson’s savvy-chic Kelly Jones, a marketing maestro brought in to rejuvenate NASA’s floundering Apollo space program. From Draper’s New York to Kennedy’s Florida at the behest of none other than Richard Nixon. Or, at least, one of his shadier agents, Woody Harrelson’s Moe Berkus. He’s almost convincing.

The appointment comes much to the chagrin of Channing Tatum’s buttoned up Cole Davis, a man whose scarred past haunts a present overseeing the latest Apollo mission. Number 11. Yep, the one that will see Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin fly to and land on the moon. Not that any one here knows that success lies ahead. Across the Pacific, the Soviets lead the Space Race thus far, with the film playing heavily into its socio-political ramifications. Actually landing on the moon is, in this context, less valuable than the perception that the feat has been achieved and what this means in the ranking of global superpowers.

Such demands that Kelly, when not charming senators and securing lucrative brand deals for NASA, oversee the production of a fake moon landing. A back up, should the legitimate one go the way of Apollo 1. As there’s no sense here that the production actually believes the angle – there’s a tongue-in-cheek nod the Kubrick conspiracy – it’s herein that any last vestiges of gravitas are allowed to slip into orbit. Except, it’s more damning even than that. Much as the pay off gag works – just about – the tonal shift, from screwball bounce to abject betrayal, feels a rug pull to the film’s erstwhile efforts. The real mission to the moon, we can invest in. Trite flippancy and blunt satire are a sell even Kelly would struggle with.

That’s not the only issue here. There’s also the matter of Johannson’s excellence. Indeed, so vibrantly charismatic is the gigawatt star’s screen presence throughout the film, that everything else, everyone else, feels lacking. It’s as stark as Dorothy’s Kansas to the technicolour of Oz. Tatum, particularly, misses. Where a script by Rose Gilroy calls for Davis to be strait-laced, Tatum plumps for straight-jacketed. Greg Berlanti shoots dull cinematography with a staid solemnity and against an uninspired soundtrack of familiar ebbs and flows.

Fly Me to the Moon started life as a TV movie, made for Apple, and upgraded to cinemas off the back of positive screeners. Once upon a time, such would be a reasonable excuse for low ambition. No longer. As delightful as Johansson is, she’s not quite enough to lift this one off the ground, never mind to the moon and back.