This review was made possible by an advance screening of Fly Me To The Moon. Fly Me To The Moon releases in theaters on July 11, 2024.
The first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words Fly Me To The Moon is undoubtedly the Frank Sinatra song, but after watching this film, you’ll forget about Frank Sinatra and only be talking about Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum. They are both true stars who radiate in a film that’s just absolutely hilarious and a lot of fun to watch, even if some aspects of the script aren’t as strong as others.
‘Fly Me To The Moon’ Fails To Remember Its Genre
The film starts off by explaining to the audience what the Space Race is and what the Soviet Union and the USA’s place in it was. The film focuses heavily on this space race while introducing us to our two main characters: Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), a director at NASA who’s in charge of the Apollo 11 launch, and Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), a marketing specialist who’s the best at her job and gets brought into NASA to help fix their public image.
The marketing for this film shows it off as a rom-com while also handling the faking of the moon landing. The only issue that was present with this film was that it seemed to forget that it was a rom-com for a good 80% of the films.
While it’s obvious to the audience that there is something between these two characters thanks to their first scene together, which sets off the sparks, and numerous scenes where they don’t get along, which is rom-com language, they’re going to get together by the end of this film. Fly Me to the Moon seemingly just forgets the romance, making this film just a comedy.
There’s not any real development in their relationship aside from Cole not agreeing with what Kelly is doing and Kelly just giving a single care in the world. It isn’t until the end of Act 2 and the final act that we begin to see some actual development in their relationship, but at this point in the film, it all feels too rushed and fails to draw me into their relationship.
‘Fly Me To The Moon’ Is Generic But Entertaining
Rose Gilroy excels at writing a script that just has you laughing from start to finish, and with Greg Berlanti’s direction, it makes for a wonderful crowd-pleaser that easily wants to pull you back for a rewatch, but unfortunately, not all aspects of Gilroy’s script call for praise. The overall story of the film is generic, and while normally that can be seen as a bad thing for the film, it’s not too much of an issue here.
The story is very basic as we follow Kelly, who gets hired by Moe Berkus to film a fake moon landing that they can use instead of the real footage so they can gain a lead in the Space Race. This is a plotline that takes place during the second act of the film; it’s straightforward and there’s not much to it, and that tends to be the problem. Due to the pacing, this portion of the film ends up being rather boring, and there are only so many times you can have Scarlett Johansson come to save your film.
Cole Davis is a character that is dead-set focused on the mission at hand; for him, it’s about winning this space race, getting those astronauts onto the moon safely, and getting them back home safely. He’s had a hard past, which comes back to haunt him in a scene that gives Channing Tatum the spotlight. It’s one of the best scenes in the film, but aside from that moment, Cole has great importance to the story of the film, but that doesn’t make him a captivating enough character.
If it weren’t for Kelly and Johansson’s performance as her, Cole wouldn’t be as good of a character as he is. Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum are remarkable scene partners and have great chemistry, which is why it’s saddening to see that there wasn’t much thought or effort put into the development of their relationship. They spend so much time around each other in the film, yet the love I’m supposed to feel between them feels sudden and fake.
Scarlett Johansson and Her Many Accents
Kelly is a character that’s just amazing at marketing; no one does it better than her. She’ll do anything to get her clients to agree, even if that means pretending to be pregnant and talking to all their secretaries to find out which car they drive. Kelly actually reminds me a lot of Gary from Hit Man; they’re both characters who change their characteristics to help make their clients feel at ease, helping them get the right results each and every time.
This ends up being a hilarious gag throughout the film as Kelly changes her accent to talk to the clients or just to fit in, and it always instantly works out, but what’s more impressive is that Scarlett Johansson was able to pull off so many different accents without slipping out of any of them. I’ve seen my fair share of Scarlett Johansson films, and Fly Me to the Moon is one of her best roles in recent years and arguably could be one of her best roles.
Final Thoughts
Fly Me to the Moon might be a little too generic, but it’s impossible to deny that it’s a fun ride throughout. There are some pacing issues here, and the script does struggle on whether it should focus on the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the USA, Cole and Kelly’s relationship, or the faking of the moon landing, but the script also provides amazing character writing for Kelly, who has Scarlett Johansson give her best performance yet for this role. Greg Berlanti and Rose Gilroy might’ve not stuck the landing perfectly on balancing aspects of this movie, but they’ve created the perfect film where you can sit down after a long and hard day, put your feet up, and just laugh and enjoy a decent film.
Fly Me To The Moon releases in theaters on July 11, 2024. Check out the trailer below.
