The space race film has a number of entries at this point. From classics like ‘The Right Stuff’ and ‘Apollo 13’ to modern awards plays like ‘Hidden Figures’ and even fictional takes like ‘The Martian’. All of these have all left their mark on cinema. Many of them follow a similar formula to one another: explain the stakes of the situation as clearly as possible, have a few things go wrong along the way so the audience understands that the characters need to pivot on the fly, and have our heroes snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It sounds a little hum drum when rolled out like that, but it manages to work just about every time. Even modern blockbusters like ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ have found enormous success with this plan.

It’s why I was so surprised that I found ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ to be lacking in its efforts to blend space race and rom-com. It sounds at the very least like an on base double! And yet the film never succeeds in what all those other films did. Clearly convey the stakes, and show where and how our heroes are struggling.

It’s 1968 and NASA launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) is running out of money, and running low on political capital to beat the Russians to the moon. Or at least he says, apart from one opening scene it’s hard to tell that NASA is struggling, they talk about it occasionally but it never really seems to affect the conditions of life at Kennedy Space Center.

The Nixon Administration hires hot shot advertising woman, (exactly who she works for before this and what her title is are both completely unknown quandaries) Kelly Jones (Scarlet Johansson) to right the ship and get public interest back on board to the moon. She first starts winning over the interest of brands to more fully fund the mission. Having the astronauts be stars of Omega watches and Tang ads. And then eventually pivots to using her grifting skills to woo over senators that are threatening to pull funding from the moon mission.

This chafes at Cole Davis who is the world’s most honorable man and has never told a lie in his life. Through their frustration with one another they bicker back and forth in a typical odd couple way and chemistry is had. Except that it isn’t as much as I would hope? Especially after seeing a different rom-com with extra steps earlier this year in ‘The Fall Guy’, I was hoping for more from two successfully hot people. I never fully bought into the turn where they fall for one another, other than that’s obviously what had to happen in the movie. The chemistry was minimal at best. And both of these actors are capable of convincing me that they are falling in love, of that I am sure.

My favorite performance of the movie was actually Ray Romano playing NASA employee Henry Smalls, a somewhat put upon older guy trying to keep up with the chaotic life at NASA, confused and shaken by Jones’ bringing in cameras and interviewers to pique the public interest. Romano gives the most heartfelt monologue of the film, and stick the landing in his job of being lovably baffled by the shenanigans involved in a space based rom-com.

The chicanery of the movie reaches a fever pitch when Nixon’s right hand man Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) insists that they have a backup faked version of the landing to substitute for the real thing. So Kelly is charged with hiring a director and producing the faked version under the nose of the goodest boy who ever gooded Cole Davis. It’s honestly a solid bit, but probably could’ve used more ‘Noises Off’ than what we wind up getting.

The most space racey stressful bit stems from this plot as no one is sure towards the end whether or not the live broadcast being aired to thousands of Americans is from Apollo, or being sent in from the soundstage a half mile away. And that’s why this concept works! The movie spends too much time bogging itself down early on, with advertising subplots that ostensibly go nowhere and never feel like they have real stakes. Which is doubly frustrating because not only do that not feel like they have weight but this movie is a boggling two hours and twelve minutes. It just can’t decide if it wants to be a light breezy rom-com, or a nail biting space movie. I think there is a way to do both things, but the movie never manages to balance them out. So we’re stuck feeling stuck, instead of launching into the sky.

Overall the movie had some solid gags, and of course it’s nice to go see a star studded rom-com exist in theaters and not shoved onto streaming. But I was hoping for more from both sides of the film. More charm, more chemistry, more stress in flying a mission to the moon. If you’re looking for a solid rom-com plus this year you can do worse, but you can also do better.

2.5/5