Fly Me To the Moon

Cert: 15 | ★★★✩✩

Reviewed by John Nathan

The idea that Nasa’s Moon landing in 1969 was faked is not new. Nor is it new that America’s space programme is at the mercy of public opinion and that there are members of Congress who believe there are more votes in ending the programme’s multi-billion-dollar budget than supporting it.

Such high stakes led to the superb 1978 thriller Capricorn One starring Elliott Gould in his prime. He played one of several astronauts abducted from a rocket about to be launched to Mars who are then strong-armed into making a fake version of the landings in a secret TV studio, and all to protect the space programme from losing its budget if the mission went wrong.

That idea is recreated in this comedy starring Scarlett Johansson as Kelly, a ruthless PR executive, and Channing Tatum as Cole, the steely-eyed director of the Apollo 11 programme. With the budget under threat, Johansson’s Kelly is employed by a White House spook Moe (Woody Harrelson) to generate public interest in a space race overshadowed by the Vietnam War.

Tatum in Fly Me to the Moon

It’s clear that Kelly and Cole are hotter for each other than a rocket re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. However, the film’s comedy is generated by the clash between Kelly’s commercially minded tactic to monetise every possible aspect of the Apollo programme with sponsorship and the much purer motives of former fighter pilot Cole, who seeks scientific truth and who is burdened by the lives lost during previous programmes.

“We can’t accept private money,” he objects to Kelly in a moment that is so very pre-Elon Musk and SpaceX.

Director Greg Berlanti does not quite know where his slick film should be pitched. Kelly is a force of nature when coming up against the Mad Men attitudes of the time. But the film is not about chauvinism. We’re invited to enjoy the more innocent Sixties, but the movie wants to be more about nostalgia.

Telling the truth is the virtue preached. But the much better film about conspiracy surrounding America’s space programme was made in 1978.