Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in Fly Me to the Moon. Photo / supplied
Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in Fly Me to the Moon. Photo / supplied
MOVIE REVIEW:Fly Me to the Moon is set against the Apollo 11 mission, match-making Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johannson in a romance that can suggest Rock Hudson and Doris Day in the Sputnik era. He’s Cole Davis, the fictitious ex-astronaut head of Mission Control at Cape Canaveral. She’s KellyJones, a Madison Ave marketing wiz head-hunted by the White House to help sell Nasa to politicians voting on funding and the American people.
The film also plays around with the conspiracy theory that the moon landings were faked on a television soundstage. In this, a President Nixon fixer – Woody Harrelson playing a character weirdly similar to his in the Watergate series White House Plumbers – orders Jones to produce a fake version to save embarrassment should Apollo 11 fail, while keeping it a secret from Davis.
If that sounds like a dumb idea, this dull, silly, unfunny, wobbly-toned film certainly makes the most of it. Part of the problem is Tatum’s uncomfortable, glum performance playing a man with a broken heart – literally, a cardiac problem has kept him out of space, plus he’s guilt-ridden for the deaths of the Apollo 1 crew.
He does, however, sport an impressive array of coloured polyester polo necks to make him stand out among Nasa’s white-shirt-and-tie guys, as well as a very strange haircut and a tan that suggests he’s been standing too close to the launchpad.
Meanwhile, Johannson is mostly fizzy fun, right up until a memorably awful scene when she comes clean about her pre-Madison Ave past. Still, her character’s leisurewear is its own sideshow in a film that takes more notice of the fashion of the era than its rocket science.
Rating out of five: ★★
Fly Me to the Moon, directed Greg Berlanti, is in cinemas now.
