'Fly Me to the Moon' movie review: A flighty romcom that fails to land

Fly Me To The Moon

Film: Fly Me to the Moon
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Woody Harrelson, Jim Rash, Ray Romano, Nick Dillenburg, Anna Garcia, Noah Robbins
Director: Greg Berlanti
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 132 min.

‘Fly Me to the Moon' has bankable stars and a great concept for a romcom but the resultant is not exactly laughter inducing.

It's the late 60's. Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), a successful ad executive gets plucked from a Manhattan agency by a shadowy government figure (Woody Harrelson), to sell the space program to the disinterested American people already beleaguered by the Vietnam war. Her task gets difficult because Apollo 11 Launch Director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) will have none of it. A brilliant pilot who should have been an astronaut himself, he remains consumed by the tragedy that befell Apollo 1 and is unable to shelve the guilt associated with that crash. Jones' PR initiatives meant to fix NASA's public image, wreaks havoc on Davis' already difficult task of putting a man on the moon. Then the White House, wanting to put USA ahead of the Russians in space exploration, deems the mission too important to fail and Jones is directed to stage a fake moon landing as backup.

In a nod to conspiracy theorists who still claim the ‘Man on the Moon' expedition as fake, Berlanti and team write in sequences that have Kelly hiring a director and actors to give interviews and fake the moon landing on a sound stage in case the real one fails. Bringing Stanley Kubrick's name into that theory lends it some moxie. Jim Rash does well to emulate a wildly flamboyant, unknown, frustrated filmmaker who finally gets the chance to show off his artistry, even if no one is allowed to know about it.

The narrative feels jumbled - going from interesting, zippy, old-fashioned rom-com to wannabe cynical political satire with a penchant for drama. The narrative gets bogged down between the fake and the real with Jones' revealing her true origins even when its doesn't feel warranted. Though the back and forth banter is interesting, there's not much snap nor humor to keep the audience invested here. This is definitely not a patch on the Rock Hudson and Doris Day classics we've enjoyed so much.

Supporting players like Ray Romano and Anna Garcia fail to register their presence while Colin Jost of "Saturday Night Live" hams it to the hilt as a Senator that Jones' is expected to convince in order to keep the funds flowing for the mission. A-list stars, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, are individually appealing but despite their best efforts fail to generate chemistry with each other.

Johansson is seasoned as Kelly Jones who is quick on the uptake and willing to transform herself to achieve her goals. Since Davis is written up as a drag, that's exactly what Tatum epitomises here. Rose Gilroy's screenplay would have done well with some more doses of humor. Berlanti's movie is mildly entertaining - definitely not the riotous romcom we were expecting.