Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of July 8, 2024
Fly Me to the Moon
Rated PG-13 for some strong language and smoking
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 69%
In Theaters
I always thought The Shining was a decent movie in my younger years, with some good scares and fantastic acting, but it wasn’t until years later, after I saw the documentary Room 237, that I truly started to put together what a crazy genius film it might be, and what I knew about the moon landing was potentially untrue. I’m not one to jump into conspiracy theories at all, but the theory laid out in this documentary contends that Stanley Kubrick all but admitted through the film’s imagery that he filmed the moon landing as a contingency in case we couldn’t get good footage, or in case they didn’t make it at all. In this way we could prove to the world, and more importantly to the Russians, that we were indeed first. In Fly Me to the Moon, a similar story is laid out where Scarlett Johansson plays a slick New York PR guru who is hired by Woody Harrelson, a government shadow ops character who needs her to give NASA the much-needed PR they require to become the center of the world’s attention, rather than just an unnecessary bureaucracy. Once in Florida, she goes to work with NASA launch director Cole Davis (a fictional character played by Channing Tatum) who tries hard not to fall in love with her but just can’t seem to resist. But once crunch time kicks in, the decision is made to secretly film the moon landing so that the world will see that the Americans hold space superiority. But being a romantic comedy, lots of things go wrong and hilarity ensues throughout. While the film does have its slow moments and the NASA scenes aren’t nearly technical enough to be taken seriously, the movie is so damn cute that you hardly care. I love a good rom com and there are so few of them nowadays, so I was thrilled that this one came along, even if not perfect. The chemistry between Johansson and Tatum is solid and the film comes off as really sweet, without being sappy in the least. And I love that someone had the idea to turn such a crazy (or not so crazy) conspiracy into a feel-good romance. I really appreciated that it is almost a family-friendly movie as well. It feels like a genuine PG movie until Woody throws out an F-bomb at the end, which I can only guess was put in to get a 13 added to the PG. But overall, it’s a highly enjoyable film with largely forgivable faults. B+