In other words: this NASA ruse is fun.
I had zero interest in reviewing the NASA comedy “Space Cadet” on Amazon Prime Video, and according to its Rotten Tomatoes score of 26%, I probably made the right call.
Last Saturday, that very same weekend “Space Cadet” came out, I caught a special screening of the new theatrical NASA comedy “Fly Me to the Moon,” starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum,” and I had a really good time with it. It likes to fight against the conspiracy that the 1969 moon landing was staged, but it also likes to follow a romance in the tradition between the 40s and 60s.
I’ve always believed the moon landing was real, but it is fun to see the real and fake dramatization merge together. In fact, now that I look at it, I was reminded 2 years ago on Richard Linklater’s rotoscoped animated film “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood,” which represented a child’s fantasy of being the first person on the moon. Whether it was real or fake in that universe, it does like to represent its own reality from different perspectives. And now that we have “Fly Me to the Moon,” it chooses to prove the nonbelievers wrong.
Johansson stars as market maven Kelly Jones, who can use a fake pregnant belly to try to win car executives over. Unless a government official like Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) can expose her games. However, that same character wishes to use her talents to help NASA get the funds they need to get to the moon before the Russians do. And one more however, the White House is worried that the mission will fail, so he has her set up a fake moon landing with the flamboyant director Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash) handling the dramatization.
Tatum plays Cole Davis, the Vietnam War vet and launch director, who needs all the good luck his men can have. Which is why he’s always trying to chase that mischievous black cat around. He reluctantly hires Kelly and her associate (Anna Garcia) to work in what looks like a storage room (actually their storage room has a window), so she has his men install a window and she presents him promos of products that claim to have been in space. False Advertising.
He mostly has a stern disposition because he wants things to go according to plan, and he isn’t fond of her having his associate Henry Smalls (Ray Romano) being played by an actor in a fake interview. And he’s still haunted by his tragic past, which resulted in some of his men getting killed. Whether we’re talking about comedy or pathos, he seems to have the tone and characterization of a 1940s-50s character. I’m pretty sure Frank Capra would appreciate this guy.
Even if the screenplay by Rose Gilroy isn’t always in balanced, director Greg Berlanti (“Love, Simon”) still provides the humor and sweetness within the characters and their situations. And even if it sounds corny, I still got a kick out of that black cat, especially with Kelly’s observation that “If they cross your path, they’re probably going somewhere else.” Despite set-backs in their mission as well as her romance with Cole, this cat gives us no bad luck. In fact, when it wanders around on the moon set, somebody at Sony Pictures should have placed it on the “Madame Web” set to try to delay things, so we don’t have to see that film sooner than we had to.
But what I really enjoyed about “Fly Me to the Moon” is the way Johansson and Tatum pay tribute to the male and female characters of that period by representing strong women and stern men. It was difficult at the time for women to prove their worth to society that they can be as strong as men. And even if she is a con artist, she still has her values.
And as a 60s comedy, it’s miles and miles ahead of Jerry Seinfeld’s “Unfrosted,” so I’ll take my chances with the formulas here.