Fly Me to the Moon is a perfectly serviceable romance set at the height of the space race.
Directed by Greg Berlanti, the movie is largely held together by the performances of its two leads, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum.
Johansson’s character, Kelly Jones, is a marketing specialist with a murky past who is brought in to ‘sell’ the Apollo 11 mission and NASA to the American public.
The Soviets had already won the race to send someone into space and it had been six years since John F Kennedy proclaimed a mission to the moon.
Ballooning budgets, a tragic accident and the ongoing war in Vietnam meant the public’s appetite for space funding was reaching an all time low.
Enter Jones, who arrives in NASA’s Cape Canaveral compound and immediately shakes up the scenery, bringing in corporate tours and hiring actors to play the rocket scientists on television.
That naturally frustrates Apollo 11 launch director Cole Davis (Tatum), who is already dealing with compressed timelines and internal division.
But sparks eventually fly between the pair, whose bickering soon gives way to undeniable chemistry.
And that is mostly it but for a few side plot lines, one of which I will not spoil but did not work for me in the current age of scientific disinformation.
Johansson and Tatum are pretty well matched, with the former giving a particularly spirited performance, the zany energy of which fits perfectly with the intended tone of the movie.
There is little that is original beyond that, but it is well acted and set in an exciting time of exploration.
If half an hour was shaved off its 129 minute runtime, it would probably be one of the better romances in recent years.
But it remains mostly enjoyable. Find it in cinemas.
Rated 13 for some Language.
3/5.
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