Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

Fly-Me-to-the-Moon-(2024)
Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

“Fly Me to the Moon” takes its audience for a ride oscillating from fairy tale to shameless political farce to angst-ridden period film. Cacophonous and bloated Greg Berlanti’s motion picture, however, misuses the ample appeal of its high-profile headliners Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum as they have somewhat of an appeal as individuals but no chemistry as a couple.

In this case, Johansson shines especially as the late 1960s advertising executive Kelly Jones, who is recruited from an agency in Manhattan with the task of marketing the space program. She’s Don Draper, but in a pink pencil skirt and praise costume designer Mary Zophres, who has worked on some Coen movies and has managed to source some truly exquisite mid-century fashion for these actors to wear. The secretive official who seeks out Kelly in a bar regarding the opportunity (Woody Harrelson who has a sinister presence wearing a fedora) suggests to her how important her sex appeal is to her job. But her strength is more that she has an acute social perceptiveness and knows how to charm others.

The character Kelly possesses this duality, this ability to morph into whatever maternal figure she needs to be, is what the audience finds entertaining most of all in Berlanti’s movie made from the Rose Gilroy screenplay.

Could she be lying? Maybe. But she is also quite good at what she does. Such is why the fact that she might have a romantic connection with actor Tatum’s launching director Cole Davis doesn’t hold water, other than the fact that they’re both gorgeous. Kelly and Cole meet cute one night in the neon blare of a Cocoa Beach dinner the next day one of them has to do the cheesy greeting that all top gun fanatics do if they spot someone they can’t avoid blowing up with. But Cole is not interested in Kelly’s tomfoolery he is an outstanding pilot who would have made a wonderful astronaut, but he’s all work as does the tragedy of Apollo 1 which is forever seared into his consciousness even as Apollo 11’s mission prepares for launch. It’s just boring, really.

In this type of screwball romance comedy, snappy banter is the order of the day. With so many classic Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies in his repertoire, Fly Me to the Moon is expected to deliver the same magic. More often than not, one gets the impression that Johansson and Tatum are from two completely different films. The former is exuberant and daring, while the latter is cold and nervous. Ironically, Chris Evans was first considered for the role of Cole, which would have been spot on, partly because Johansson and Evans are good friends in real life. Tatum has a necessary shift but frustratingly appears to be elusive in direction. And at this point in the film where the characters of Kelly and Cole converse at last, the story is arrested by what can only be bland, undramatic reflections about the character’s conflicts.

Cole would definitely feel furious for instance, if he found out that one of Kelly´s tasks is hiring a director and actors to stage the fake moon landing on a sound stage in case the real one goes wrong. This has always been a popular conspiracy theory including the idea that it was Kubrick who directed it, and the film’s satirical reference to his name is unoriginal, to say the least.

A buoyantly depressed filmmaker in Jim Rash’s strong portrayal, his look probably involves a lot more than what we can ever know, as he, at last, gets an opportunity to flash his colors, albeit in darkness, to the audience. There is a thin line if there is any, that defines the movie he is filming at that moment and the movie that could have been made instead.

Here, what will wind up being numerous endings is the flight structure of “Fly Me to the Moon,” and it features the same sort of back and forth between fiction and reality that is settled into a scattered mess. No, it just keeps on coming and coming beyond what could have been Winston T’s war room and what was on T’s timetable as the movie looked at T’s title previous to the paddles coming down on the cameo. Developed characters and motivations that could have made for fun drives were expanded upon during presentation confessions. For audiences enjoying enactment with farce, Berlanti’s film works much better and around 120 plus minutes is way too much for a story with the best ending.

Strong supporting players such as Anna Garcia and Ray Romano can only hold out through all these funny episodes with the thin characters they manage to portray. In his briefest of appearances, Colin Jost, Johansson\’s husband, turns out to be utterly obnoxious as the senator who she is attempting to seduce to gain his endorsement.

While the scene is filled with witty lines, it comes across as forced and staged.

Nevertheless, this scene is symptomatic of the disarray that is the movie’s shaky plot there is. Is it meant to be a comedic offering, or does it delve into drama? Is it a celebration of the past or an examination of history? Many things continue to burn in the madness of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ and perhaps this is the best metaphor of all.

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