Fly Me to the Moon review, fun comedy about the space race

Fly Me to the Moon built itself on top of real history with some comedy and romance added for spice. It’s about NASA’s Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. It’s a fun watch and brought back some vivid memories of that time for me, but it is not entirely factual. There are some spoilers ahead.

Fly Me to the Moon features Kelly (Scarlett Johansson) as a woman hired to market NASA and the space mission to the American public. She’s hauled out of a NYC marketing firm by The President’s man, Moe (Woody Harrelson), and taken to Florida to revive the image of the space race and help NASA secure the funding it needs from Congress.

Kelly and her assistant Ruby (Anna Garcia) rework just about everything about how NASA presents itself to the public. According to Time Magazine, many of the things we see Kelly do simply didn’t happen. Getting brand endorsements and money from private companies is but one example.

In Florida, Kelly deals with Cole (Channing Tatum). He’s in charge of the launch. Kelly tries to manipulate him with all her usual tricks – flirting, lying, playing a part. It works, kind of, but partly it works because Moe insists it must.

Of course, they actually like each other. You knew that would happen.

Henry (Ray Romano) is around. I’m not sure what his title at NASA is. Plus there are engineers and astronauts everywhere.

John F. Kennedy, Jr. was the President who started the space race. But Richard Nixon was President in 1969 when the launch of Apollo 11 was growing closer. Nixon was nervous about the mission. If it failed, the US would look bad to the world and the Soviets would have all the bragging rights. In a conspiracy theory parody come to film, Nixon sent Moe to force Kelly to create a way to fake the moon landing and televise that instead of the real thing. Just in case.

Kelly hired Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash) to fake the landing. Lance was a parody of a parody as a diva director. He added to the comedy. Liking a straight arrow like Cole had an improvement effect on the con artist inside Kelly. She wasn’t on board with the fake version.

I liked the archival footage I remembered so well from that time. Walter Cronkite giving the news. Kennedy and Nixon talking. The sets looked like NASA, there were Mustang convertibles everywhere. I thought the film captured the thrill and excitement the general public felt at the time. I remember exactly where I was when, “The Eagle has landed,” came across the radio. I remember hearing Neil Armstrong say, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” from the moon.

Greg Berlanti directed this fantasy romp through history. It’s streaming on Apple TV+ or can be rented on Prime Video.