‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Review: Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum Fail to Land Greg Berlanti’s Space Race Rom-Com

“Take me to the moon”

Dan McFadden/Sony Pictures

A charitable explanation for the new movie starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum is that the creators got wasted one night and watched the cheesy 1978 film. Capricorn 1about a fake moon mission to Mars. “Hey, you know what would make this movie even better?” one of them must have asked rhetorically. “If it was also a love story.”

The result is the evil engendered Fly me to the moonwhich somehow manages to be less credible than Capricorn 1 —and that movie starred O.J. Simpson as an astronaut. The film oddly blends romantic comedy, historical drama, and conspiracy thriller into exactly the kind of unholy mess you’d expect. Except no one expects it to be 132 minutes long. It’s no wonder Tatum looks uncomfortable throughout the movie.

It’s not a spoiler to reveal that a key plot point involves a conspiracy to fake the Apollo 11 moon landing, since the trailer reveals it with all the secrecy of a drunken sailor. It’s a ridiculous premise, made all the more ridiculous by how long it takes for Rose Gilroy’s screenplay (Keenan Flynn and Bill Kirstein are credited with the story) to get there.

We first meet Kelly Jones (Johansson), an advertising executive whose audacity is demonstrated by a scene in which she successfully pitches ideas to a roomful of skeptical men while wearing padding designed to make her look pregnant. Word of her talents has apparently reached Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson, who still appears to be playing E. Howard Hunt on the HBO series). White House Plumbers), a shady, fedora-wearing government agent who recruits her to help NASA persuade people that going to the moon is a good idea.

So she heads to Florida with her loyal assistant Ruby (Anna Garcia), where she has a romantic encounter at a restaurant with Cole (Tatum) when he tells her she’s on fire. She thinks it’s a bad pick-up line until it turns out the book she’s reading is actually on fire. The joke is, he meant it literally, you know?

They meet up after she and Ruby settle into their drab Cape Kennedy office. It turns out that Cole is the launch director for the upcoming Apollo 11 moon landing mission, and he’s not thrilled that Kelly is doing what he sees as pointless, distracting work. We soon learn that Cole wanted to be an astronaut himself, but was disqualified due to a heart condition, and that he’s still wracked with guilt over the tragic deaths of the three Apollo 1 astronauts in a fire. While the backstory adds some depth to his character, it doesn’t exactly lay the foundation for laughs.

Produced by Berkus, who makes periodic appearances as the ghosts in A Christmas CarolKelly gets to work via tedious subplots involving, among other things, wooing reluctant senators to get their votes on getting government funding for NASA. One of them is played by Johansson’s real-life husband Colin Jost, in the kind of cheesy cameo that feels like revenge for his appearances in SNL. It’s a shame I love Lucy is no longer on the air, as there is a feeling that this is where they will appear together next.

And then the story gets really crazy, with Berkus insisting that the footage of the moon landing be faked despite the fact that the astronauts are actually going there. The idea is that the government, namely President Nixon, is worried that something is going to go wrong and America is losing its place in the world to the Russians. The illicit project even has a name: Project Artemis. Ruby hires veteran commercial director and prima donna Lance Vespertine, known as the “Kubrick of commercials,” to come to Florida and supervise the filming. He’s played by Jim Rash (Community), who can make anything funny, even an Oscar acceptance speech (watch it on YouTube), and who manages to get the only real laughs in the film, even though his pretentious persona is a walking cliché. (Incidentally, Stanley Kubrick is mentioned several times throughout the film, likely in a nod to the conspiracy theory that he masterminded the first moon landing.)

The film then shifts gears and becomes a farcical thriller that centers on Kelly’s desperate efforts, along with two hapless NASA engineers, to get a television—a mission made extremely difficult by the heavy traffic in the area due to the space launch and the fact that all the stores are closed. Then it’s back to slapstick comedy when the mock moon landing goes awry when a black cat wanders into the room.

Veteran television director Greg Berlanti (Riverdale, Everwood Wood), who demonstrated real cinematic talent with With love, Simonfails to make any of this compelling or, more problematically, entertaining. The wild tonal shifts leave the viewer in the dust, and even the two stars fail to make anything work. Johansson (fabulous in a dizzying array of gorgeous ’60s-style outfits designed by Mary Zophres) does well enough, with her easygoing, engaging charm serving her well as a character who’s essentially a con artist. Tatum, on the other hand, fails to bring his usual charisma, though to be fair, Cole alternates between grumpy and morose. Of the supporting cast, Ray Romano is completely wasted as a veteran NASA engineer.

Originally planned for a streaming release, Fly me to the moon could attract audiences to theaters thanks to its star cast and the absence of competing romantic comedies. Or, to be more precise, romantic comedies that also feature dramatic, historical, and conspiracy thriller elements.