Fifty-five years later, we are still re-writing our moon landing. Have the specifics changed in that time? No. Not a single one. Has the degree of difficulty changed in retrospect? Not one little bit. Have the optics changed in that time? Yes, almost every single one. It’s not difficult to see why Americans keep going back to the moon landing. For one, it was -arguably- our last BIG win as a nation. More importantly, however, is we now live at a time in which conspiracy theorists are not just tin-foil-hat-wearing-basement-dwelling losers. No, instead, they are tin-foil-hat-wearing-basement-dwelling-loser major party candidates for President. Hence, it is our job, periodically, to remind people Americans really did set foot on the moon in July of 1969 because, right now, if opposing that fact could get Trump elected, zillions of Americans idiots -including Trump himself- would jump on it.
You are sad, sad, nihilistic losers. And your lack of humility or any sense of the greater good (or even the immediate good) might just destroy democracy.
So today, we revisit America’s greatest achievement in both comedic and dramatic tones with Fly Me to the Moon, a narrative highlighting the roles of launch supervisor Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), and NASA’s PR con-artist Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson). These are two people who wouldn’t have lasted in the internet age. Cole Davis (based on real life Gene Kranz) was responsible for the disaster of Apollo 1. Kelly Jones -who knows the real life equivalent, or of there even was one- is a snake oil seller. America -and the internet- only has a tolerance for these types of folks when they become exceptionally large.
We meet Kelly (feigning eight-month pregnancy) selling Mustangs with seatbelts, unheard of at the time. Recognizing her talent, White House representative Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) hijacks Kelly’s career and sends her to Florida with the Herculean task of bringing money and good PR to NASA. Herculean might be underselling it.
Normally with a film like this, we scoff at how young the people are for the jobs they are doing. No NASA control room in my mind isn’t complete without a calculus of chain-smoking, glasses-wearing, hypertensive 60-year-old white men. Here’s the reality: In 1969, the average age of a NASA employee was 28. Chew on that. Channing Tatum (44) and Scarlett Johansson (39) are fogies in this crowd. ScarJo is a NASA cougar. Rocket Science is a young science? Yeah, you’re not kidding.
To say tone is mixed with
To say tone is uneven in this film is a grand understatement. Don’t get me wrong: Fly Me to the Moon is very likable and -let’s face it- who doesn’t dig Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson falling for one another? And yet, hear me out, the moon landing represents -arguably- the greatest achievement in human history. It took thousands upon thousands of talented people working in coordination and demanded 100% perfection from a few hundred among them. The film reminds us several times the consequences of failure: Apollo 1, in which three men lost their lives because of an overlooked (perceived) triviality. That said, movie, do you really think the cheesy romcom feel is justified? Sure, we love a nerd social and the random fear of a black cat, but … the stakes were a little bigger here than “Josie’s boutique is gonna be closed on Wednesday.” Know what I’m sayin’?
I’m not sure I would change because much of Fly Me to the Moon was amiable if not delightful, but I did wonder on occasion what kind of film these guys were making. We see constant juggling and juxtaposition going on here. In one scene, we snicker as astronauts sell Omega
watches; in the next, Cole is delivering flowers to dead comrades. Fly Me to the Moon has a lot of those.
In Act III, Fly Me to the Moon takes us to a place I wish it hadn’t. Not that the scenes are bad or don’t work, but entirely because of current context. In Mission Artemis, the sister mission to Apollo, the moon landing is faked on a sound studio at Kennedy Space Center right next door to the genuine moon launch. While this might not have been an issue in 1970, 1980, or even 2010, there is an issue today: How do you convince a majority of internet-searching morons that the moon landing wasn’t a fake? Here you are, film, essentially showing how one could fake it … and it is convincing!
Gotta say, if the endeavor here was to quell the idea that the moon landing was faked, creating a movie with a fake-but-realistic moon landing paralleling reality and then “destroying all the evidence” of such isn’t quite getting it done. I mean, you guys must know you only added fuel to the fire here, right?
Fly Me to the Moon is amiable, juggles tone well enough, and is difficult to dislike, especially if you’re into American exceptionality. The film, however, is just trivial enough and irresponsible enough to keep it firmly in the “I liked it but didn’t love it” category.
There was once a con artist named Kelly
Who was given Apollo 11 to sell-y
She got folks on board
With gimmicks untoward
Great acts ain’t worth squat without telly
Rated PG-13, 132 Minutes
Director: Greg Berlanti
Writer: Keenan Flynn, Bill Kirstein, Rose Gilroy
Genre: The dumbing down AND smartening up of history
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who lived through it
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Flat Earthers
