Fly Me to the Moon review: charming, bubbly fun

Fly Me to the Moon is a rarity in today’s movie landscape. The new film from Apple and Love, Simon director Greg Berlanti is a good old-fashioned romantic comedy that, in true Hollywood fashion, uses the Space Race of the late ’60s as the backdrop for a love story between two bickering people who find themselves pulled together against their own better judgment. Thanks to one cast member in particular, it’s got movie star wattage that you could see from several miles away, as well as enough mile-a-minute banter that one could either call it witty or accuse it of being overly plucky, and a surprisingly refreshing dash of screwball comedic energy coursing through its veins.

Not all of it works, and, as is the case with a lot of Hollywood movies made above a certain budget level nowadays, Fly Me to the Moon doesn’t know how long to stick around or when to bow its head and exit stage left. It isn’t, in other words, an indelible achievement like the Apollo 11 mission to the moon that it depicts (and twists, just a bit). An enjoyable, low-stakes way to spend a summer night at the theater, on the other hand…

At the center of Fly Me to the Moon are Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), a clever New York marketing specialist, and Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), a former pilot working tirelessly at NASA as its lead flight director. The first time they meet, Kelly is sitting alone at a diner table sporting a yellow dress and a Marilyn Monroe-esque ’60s blonde bob. Cole is immediately struck by her beauty, and it’s easy to see why, given how lovingly Berlanti frames Johansson in this moment and how delicately cinematographer Dariusz Wolski lights her as she sits alone. It’s only after she “accidentally” lights her notebook on fire, though, that he finds an excuse to approach her and tell her, much to his own embarrassment, that she’s the most beautiful woman he’s seen in quite a while.

More than a few sparks fly during their meet-cute, which Tatum and Johansson play with appropriate amounts of warmth and nervous anxiety. However, when Kelly shows up at NASA the next day and announces that she’s been hired by a mysterious government man named Moe Berkus (a well-utilized Woody Harrelson) to revamp the agency’s public image, Cole’s opinion of her immediately shifts. Gone is the earnest romance of their first meeting. In its place, Berlanti and screenwriter Rose Gilroy initially find a more heightened comedic rhythm for Fly Me to the Moon — one that allows Johansson’s Kelly to emerge as the fast-talking, cutthroat Barbara Stanwyck to Tatum’s more stone-faced, unwaveringly moral Gary Cooper.

Johansson, for her part, shines in her role. The film is never better than when she’s coming up with new ad campaigns and adopting different accents to woo certain public representatives over to NASA’s side. The actress is asked to be simultaneously a quick-witted marketing shark and a hopeless romantic, and Johansson plays both sides of her character with astonishing ease. Tatum, conversely, doesn’t fare as well. As a performer, he’s better suited for the kind of goofy comedy that his co-star gets to swim in here, and he fails to bring the right amount of gravitas to his straight-man role in the film. That is, to his credit, both his fault and partly an issue with Gilroy’s script, which struggles to consistently justify Cole’s continued, charisma-less presence in Fly Me to the Moon, especially as it leans further and further into pure absurdity in its third act.

Tatum’s pouty, stoic turn only feels more out of place once Fly Me to the Moon introduces its most high-concept twist: a staged, Hollywood-style recreation of the moon landing that Moe assigns Kelly to put together in secret as a “backup” in case the Apollo 11 mission fails. The subplot’s origins in long-standing conspiracy theories is clear and playful, and it gives Fly Me to the Moon the chance to inject even more comedy into itself at a point in its runtime when it feels dangerously close to losing all momentum. Kelly’s comedic chemistry with her director of choice, Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash), is as strong as it is with her assistant, Ruby (Anna Garcia). The film’s jokes about control freak directors with inflated egos aren’t by any means new, but Lance’s increased role in its second half gives it an excuse to follow the Apollo 11 mission all the way to its successful, real-life conclusion and, therefore, a chance at a clear, crowd-pleasing arc for it to chart.

The film is dragged down at times by Tatum’s lackluster performance, and it goes on 15 minutes longer than it should. While its silly streak is both admirable and welcome, too, the movie doesn’t trust its screwball instincts enough to follow them all the way to the end. Even when a more irreverent conclusion — one full of smitten defeat a la The Lady Eve — is open and available to it, Gilroy’s script aims for a more obvious, saccharine, and moralistic final note that it doesn’t completely hit. And yet, despite all of these flaws, “crowd-pleasing” may still be the best word to describe Fly Me to the Moon.

Editor Harry Jierjian keeps the film hopping along at a pleasing pace for almost all of its 132-minute runtime, and Berlanti makes everything look just polished enough to match how slickly executed it is. The director also fills Fly Me to the Moon with colorful characters and equally memorable supporting performances — especially those given by Garcia, Rash, and Ray Romano, whose turn as a NASA everyman helps bring the dose of heart to the comedy that Tatum’s performance can’t. It isn’t a genre-defining smash success, but like so many classic rom-coms, the film does feature an invigorating movie star performance at the center of it. In the moments when it sits back and has the confidence to let Johansson walk all over it, you can even faintly begin to feel Fly Me to the Moon start to take flight.

Fly Me to the Moon hits theaters on Friday, July 12.