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You know what really dropped off? The Moon. All that competition in the Sixties between Russia and America. Buzz! Neil! Blast off! The most watched live event in American television history! And then… crickets. Before you ask, no British person has stepped foot anywhere near the Sea of Tranquility. In fact, no one has set foot on the Moon since 1972, unless they did so in secret, and it really seems the sort of thing you’d talk about. Wonder what’s going on up there. Though, actually, do you care? I didn’t all that much – call me down-to-Earth – though I will admit that Fly Me to the Moon, a space race romcom starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, made me a little curious about lunar goings-on.
It is the Sixties and the Cold War enemies are duking it out to put a man on the Moon. But America is falling out of love with funding Nasa: it’s too expensive, and there are other closer-to-home problems to solve (namely, the Vietnam war). And so shady government dude Moe (played by Woody Harrelson with his typical weirdo schtick) enlists shady marketer Kelly (Johansson) to help sell the launch of Apollo 11, headed up by director Cole (Tatum).
At first this involves some canny brand sponsorship, which may have seemed a little out-there then but par for the course nowadays. What watch does an astronaut wear? What cereal do they eat for breakfast? This initial push and pull between Kelly – who casts hunks to speak about the science on television because Nasa’s engineers aren’t cutting it – and Cole is enjoyably zingy. Both actors excel at comedy: it is why Tatum’s upcoming, more sinister role in Blink Twice is intriguing (the film just so happens to be directed by his partner, Zoë Kravitz).
But then things get a little conspiratorial. You see, even if America does not successfully land a man on the Moon, the world needs to believe that they have, according to Moe. And so Kelly has a new job. Fake the Moon landing! If you find the right space in Nasa’s Florida complex, and recreate a terrain similar to the Moon, and you find actors to play astronauts, and convince, hm, around 200 people to conceal one of the world’s biggest lies, you could probably pull it off. The only problem – the only one, I swear! – is that Kelly has caught feelings for Cole and feels simply awful about staging a fake version of the defining moment in his professional career.
You could not accuse screenwriter Rose Gilroy or director Greg Berlanti of lacking ambition. As the script and the actors attempt to tie those storylines together, hitting expected romantic beats and totally bizarre comedic ones, it’s hard not to marvel at the movie even if you do not quite understand it. A little like looking at the Moon expecting to find answers about your romantic life. I was convinced enough by Johansson and Tatum that I said yes to every new plot point. And as the camera zooms out over the two stars, the NASA campus looking more than a little like a studio lot, I almost believed that the American government had gone in for this hoax. (It was certainly very hard to tell the difference between the video footage of the real Moon landings and the movie’s faked stuff.)
Which is, by the way, insane. The Americans reached the Moon, the landings were not staged. I have since read at least five articles explaining why that is a stupid suggestion. Catch me at a bar soon, explaining slowly, that it looked windy in the footage because the top of flag was strung out along a rod! So let us head out on some undeniable truths: Scarlett Johansson was made for the big screen. Channing Tatum can definitely fill out a Sixties knit top. The music back then was excellent. This is neither the finest film in the world, though it is far from the worst: is is, in fact, the cinematic equivalent of reaching for the Moon, falling short, and relying on your stars.
‘Fly Me To The Moon’ is in cinemas 11 July and coming later to Apple TV+
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Henry is a senior culture writer at Esquire, covering film, television, literature, music and art for the print magazine and website. He has previously written for the Guardian, The Telegraph and The Evening Standard. At Esquire, he explores entertainment in all forms, from long reads on Lost in Translation’s legacy to trend stories about Taylor Swift, as well as writing regular reviews of movies and television shows. He has also written many profiles for Esquire, and interviewed the likes of George Clooney, Austin Butler and Mike Faist.
