Film Review: Fly Me To The Moon

 

Sexuality/Nudity Mature

Violence Acceptable

Vulgarity Acceptable

Anti-Catholic Philosophy Acceptable

Scarlett Johansson is a movie star.

I don't mean that she is a famous actress.  Those are actually a dime-a-dozen.  What I mean is that she is a star.  She is an excellent actress with amazing charisma that draws you in and makes her shine.  She is the type of person that can elevate the material she is in.  And that is the case with Fly Me To The Moon.

The movie is about the Apollo moon mission.  Kelly Jones (Johansson) is a public relations expert who is approached by the mysterious Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) to help promote the space program to the public.  This puts her at loggerheads with the mission leader Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), who feels that her overly slick and stylized campaign gives the American people a watered-down and dishonest view of the program.  And in classic romantic comedy stylings, opposites attract even as they are repelled by each other's methods.

Fly Me To The Moon is not a groundbreaking piece of filmmaking, but it is certainly entertaining.  The production value is excellent and it is incredibly transportive to that era.  It has a slick, shiny style that reminds me of the setting and costumes from Catch Me If You Can.  From our point of view, we accept the historic grandeur of the moon landing.  But this movie lets us in on the behind-the-scenes nitty gritty involved.  It also touchingly pays tribute to those who lost their lives in pursuit of this goal.

But the real draw of the movie is Johansson.  This movie solidified for me that she is a movie star in the sense that her presence alone can carry a film.  Every scene she is in, she draws the audience in.  This is not simple comment about her relative attractiveness.  She projects charm and intelligence.  I've always found Tatum to be a passable actor, but he is continually outshined in every scene.  If they had gotten someone else who could have matched her charisma like Ryan Gosling or Vince Vaughn, then the sparks would have been more electric.

The rest of the supporting cast is decent.  Ray Romano plays one of the beligured engineers, but his talent doesn't seem to be fully realized.  Harrelson does a good job as the playful but menacing Berkus.  He presents enough of a threat to be a good antagonist, but his presence is not heavy enough to drag down the comedic tone.

I like that the movie explores themes about truth.  Kelly is willing to bend and twist the truth to get what she wants while Cole finds anything that is not completley straightforward to be noxious.  The moral crux of the movie comes when Kelly is asked to perprate a lie so big that even her cynical edge falters.  Johansson admirable shows the internal struggle of her emerging conscience and the movie takes the time to show why honesty is so important (in a way towards the end that I will not spoil).  I was also pleasently surprised that the movie did not take any pot-shots against Christiantity.  There is a scene where Kelly and Cole have to convince a devoutly Christian senator to help fund NASA.  The scene was set up to be a typical dig at Christians as ignorant and anti-science.  Instead, there was a pleasent discussion about of God is glorified in the natural world.  

As I said before, Fly Me To The Moon is not revolutionary cinema, but it is a fun, pleasent romantic comedy to enjoy for a couple of hours of your day.