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Fly Me to the Moon
Capricorn One meets Wag the Dog with just a dash of Mad Men in a lavish 2024 epic called Fly Me to the Moon that puts a twist on a historical event that may or may not have really happened.
It's the summer of 1969 and NASA is gearing up for Apollo 11, it's first manned mission to the man. Unfortunately, there is a feeling spreading across the country that America is spending too much money on the space program so in an attempt to justify the spending, a man named Moe Berkus, who claims to work for the White House, sends an ambitious marketing executive named Kelly Jones to Florida to snap up the image of NASA by mounting a lavish campaign connecting all kinds of items to NASA and the Apolo11 in order to glamorize the mission. Kelly turns NASA upside down, especially Cole Davis the launch director and just when she has made NASA an advertising dream, Berkus returns and lets Kelly know that this mission is really about beating the Russians on TV and tells her she must set up a fake moon landing in case anything goes wrong with the real one.
The screenplay is written in the style of an actual docudrama, but this reviewer just found it a little hard to believe that a lot of the stuff that happens in this movie really happened. For example, upon her arrival, Kelly wants to do interviews with Cole and some of his staff, a request which Cole vehemently refuses. Kelly then goes out and hires actors to play Cole and his staff and does interviews with them. The legal implications of such actions isn't even addressed. And when it's time to direct the fake moon landing, instead of going out and getting a first rate director like they did in Wag the Dog, they hire a gay television commercial director for the job.
On the positive side, director Greg Berlanti, who directed a film I loved last year called Red, White, and Royal Blue has been affroded a huge budget for this film and uses it pretty effectively. The film features first rate cinematography, productioni design, and editing. The casting of Scarlett Johansson as Kelly and Channing Tatum as Cole Davis give the film a genuine touch of romance that is not jammed down our throats. We see the chemistry right away, even though they don't kiss until halfway through the film and, of course, just when it's about to come to about to come to fruition, an 11:00 plot twist pulls them apart and has us wondering if we have just been completely faked out.
There are a few familiar faces in the supporting cast, including Woody Harrelson, who provides the majority of the laughs here as Moe Berkus. Also enjoyed Jim Rash as the hypersensitive director Lance Vesperine, Ray Romano as Henry Smalls, and Anna Garcia as Kelly's assistant, Ruby. Johansson also managed to snag a cameo appearance for hubby Colin Jost as a US Senator. It's a little longer than it needs to be, but there is entertainment value here as long as you don't think about it too much. And I'm not sure why, but I was a little surprised that Sinatra's version of the title tune didn't make it onto the soundtrack.
Capricorn One meets Wag the Dog with just a dash of Mad Men in a lavish 2024 epic called Fly Me to the Moon that puts a twist on a historical event that may or may not have really happened.
It's the summer of 1969 and NASA is gearing up for Apollo 11, it's first manned mission to the man. Unfortunately, there is a feeling spreading across the country that America is spending too much money on the space program so in an attempt to justify the spending, a man named Moe Berkus, who claims to work for the White House, sends an ambitious marketing executive named Kelly Jones to Florida to snap up the image of NASA by mounting a lavish campaign connecting all kinds of items to NASA and the Apolo11 in order to glamorize the mission. Kelly turns NASA upside down, especially Cole Davis the launch director and just when she has made NASA an advertising dream, Berkus returns and lets Kelly know that this mission is really about beating the Russians on TV and tells her she must set up a fake moon landing in case anything goes wrong with the real one.
The screenplay is written in the style of an actual docudrama, but this reviewer just found it a little hard to believe that a lot of the stuff that happens in this movie really happened. For example, upon her arrival, Kelly wants to do interviews with Cole and some of his staff, a request which Cole vehemently refuses. Kelly then goes out and hires actors to play Cole and his staff and does interviews with them. The legal implications of such actions isn't even addressed. And when it's time to direct the fake moon landing, instead of going out and getting a first rate director like they did in Wag the Dog, they hire a gay television commercial director for the job.
On the positive side, director Greg Berlanti, who directed a film I loved last year called Red, White, and Royal Blue has been affroded a huge budget for this film and uses it pretty effectively. The film features first rate cinematography, productioni design, and editing. The casting of Scarlett Johansson as Kelly and Channing Tatum as Cole Davis give the film a genuine touch of romance that is not jammed down our throats. We see the chemistry right away, even though they don't kiss until halfway through the film and, of course, just when it's about to come to about to come to fruition, an 11:00 plot twist pulls them apart and has us wondering if we have just been completely faked out.
There are a few familiar faces in the supporting cast, including Woody Harrelson, who provides the majority of the laughs here as Moe Berkus. Also enjoyed Jim Rash as the hypersensitive director Lance Vesperine, Ray Romano as Henry Smalls, and Anna Garcia as Kelly's assistant, Ruby. Johansson also managed to snag a cameo appearance for hubby Colin Jost as a US Senator. It's a little longer than it needs to be, but there is entertainment value here as long as you don't think about it too much. And I'm not sure why, but I was a little surprised that Sinatra's version of the title tune didn't make it onto the soundtrack.