Movie Review: Scarlett Johansson lends star power to earthbound ‘Fly Me to the Moon’

“ Fly Me to the Moon ” is healthier than it appears to be like.

This isn’t a slam towards the advertising and marketing marketing campaign for the house race rom-com a few straight-laced NASA man and the Madison Avenue advertising and marketing savant introduced in to promote the mission to the moon. It’s extra concerning the state of theatrical moviegoing.

A movie like this, with official film stars in Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, a slick, shiny look, an unique idea, and a glowing title, isn’t a generally occurring phenomenon on the native cineplex. We’ve been conditioned to see one thing like this and assume one among two issues: It’s the product of a high-spending streamer, or it’s faux, like a type of movies-within-a-movie that’s principally there for laughs but in addition at the very least considerably believable.

Each assumptions are on level, however the former is actually true: That is an Apple manufacturing that like “Napoleon” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” goes to theaters first, on Friday, by a standard studio (Sony’s Columbia Footage). It isn’t only a gesture to theaters both — it is streaming date has but to even be introduced.

The director is tv veteran Greg Berlanti, whose movies embody “Love, Simon” and “Life as We Know It.” Right here he appears to have taken a stylistic and tonal web page from Peyton Reed’s “Down with Love,” that Sixties through 2003 Rock Hudson/Doris Day pastiche starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. The script, by Rose Gilroy and story, by Invoice Kirstein and Keenan Flynn, is lighthearted and breezy with a lovely screwball vitality, giving Johansson the chance to make use of the total wattage of her film star energy because the shrewd, self-made Kelly Jones. She’s a form of feminine Don Draper minus the melancholy and dalliances, however with some secret baggage and the flexibility to appeal and persuade nearly anybody.

Should you make it previous the opening montage, a cringey historical past lesson that has all of the depth and nuance of a half-page, single-space elementary college report on the house race, you’re in for a principally nice, if meandering, trip compliments of Johansson, who produced, Tatum and a gifted roster of supporting actors (Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano, Jim Rash). Tatum may be somewhat miscast because the NASA launch director (and Korean Struggle vet) Cole Davis. Although he is an effective match for Johansson and the bevy of knit sweaters he sports activities all through, his portrayal makes Cole too immediately likeable for there to be any form of dramatic stakes or stress. Whether or not this was a miscalculation on the script stage, the route or the casting is difficult to say. However there isn’t any will-they-won’t-they, solely when-will-they, which isn’t compelling storytelling when your runtime stretches over two hours.

This can be a film that’s in no rush to get anyplace quick. Actually, the primary promoting level of the trailer, that Kelly has been employed to stage a faux moon touchdown in case something goes incorrect with Apollo 11, isn’t even launched till deep into the movie. It’s not the purpose of the story in any respect, simply a facet of it, which is somewhat disorienting throughout a first-time viewing. Rash, as a diva director-for-hire for this top-secret movie challenge, makes these scenes very humorous (though the recurring Kubrick jokes fall flat). Most makes an attempt to reference the period past the good costuming and manufacturing design are additionally fairly superficial – it’s a form of rose-colored-glasses model of the late Sixties wherein racism and homophobia are virtually nonexistent. Misogyny and former President Richard Nixon are punchlines and tolerable nuisances.

One other blunder was spending an excessive amount of time with the Apollo 11 astronauts, right down to the compulsory launch – a sequence that we’ve seen so many instances and a lot extra successfully that there’s little to be gained in clumsily shoehorning it in this sort of movie. It’s simply an costly distraction, greedy at grandeur that it didn’t actually need.

“Fly Me to the Moon” is finest when it’s not taking itself too significantly. And essentially the most worthwhile idea it bought is the concept of Johansson and Tatum (which, by the way in which, is a superb reminder to rewatch “Hail, Caesar!”) as a contemporary Day and Hudson. They’ve the appeal. They simply want materials that does it justice.

“Fly Me to the Moon,” an Apple Authentic Movies/Columbia Footage launch in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 for “some sturdy language, smoking.” Working time: 132 minutes. Two and a half stars out of 4.

Lindsey Bahr, The Related Press