Last night, my wife forced me to watch “Fly Me to the Moon”. The film’s premise is that late in 1968, dastardly Richard Nixon sent “man in black” Moe Burkus (Woody Harrelson) to a New York 5th Avenue Ad Agency. His task was to hire marketing phenom Kelly Jones (Scarlet Johanson) to revitalize public interest in the Apollo program and to ensure Congressional funding. Moe blackmails Jones into taking the job. It’s a rom-com
This film is an Apple production, so DEI and leftist politics had to be injected within the first 5 minutes. It a rule.
The obligatory alphabet soup/gay character is a film director. He storms into Jones’ office and acting gayer than Liberace in a Fire Island bathhouse he makes demands. With his gayness confirmed, Kelly and her faithful assistant Ruby fly to Florida. While on the plane the obligatory leftist politics gets injected. Ruby tells Jones how much she loathes Nixon. If you paused and wondered “Nixon? Nixon sent a spook-Fed in 1968 to the Kennedy Space Center…? Nixon wasn’t president in 1968”. Well you’re right – but Apple needed a Republican villain so – launch Dick Nixon. Later in the film, funding is held up by a Christian Senator who is reluctant to vote for the program because , science and Christianity do not mix, or something.
Jones works her magic, introducing NASA’s launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) to the realities of marketing. “No bucks, no Buck Rogers”. Fair point, but in 1968 the funding for the Apollo 11 moon landing was already appropriated and spent. Meh, facts.
Being a marketing genius Jones proposes that NASA should film Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon. Davis objects – “too heavy” and “no camera exists that can survive the extremes of space”. Filming one of the most historic events in human history never occurred to anyone but Jones. Moe likes the idea and gives Davis a “secret camera” to put on the LEM.
The absurdities only get more absurd. Moe, the Nixon-Fed wants the moon landing and Armstrong and Adrin’s moon walks fake-filmed on a stage. He wants the whole event staged in a hangar at the Kennedy Center and the fake broadcasted to the world. Jones calls in the gay director to direct the fake. Why? Because only the genius flamer can pull off the fake of the century.
Jones and Davis have romantically connected. Jones eventually has pangs of guilt about deceiving the world and love-interest Davis. She confesses her sin to Davis and proposes that they sabotage the fake landing broadcast. But they are discovered by Moe. Moe has mysteriously had the LEM’s camera sabotaged. How did he do that? Meh…
A brilliant engineer (he’s Black) rushes to a local electronics store with Jones. Why? He’s an engineering MacGyver – he needs a store-bought TV so he can cannibalize for parts and replace the broken parts on the LEM with the new parts. With about 10 minutes to launch he manages to insert the store-bought parts into the LEM. The multi-billion-dollar LEM was, apparently, like a Lego set – you could just open a panel and install parts right before launch. With no time to spare, Saturn V is ready for launch. Light that Candle! The real broadcast on the moon will (now) be broadcast to the world. It will “fool” Moe into believing the phony landing was being broadcast to the world.
In the final act, the gay director gayly directs the fake landing while he’s watching the real moon broadcast (he thinks he is watching his fake production). He matches the fake moon walk to the actual live-action, but he’s just listening to what Armstrong Aldrin are saying. He doesn’t know he’s watching the actual moon walk on his monitor. Confused? Yeah, so was I. How the director is magically matching what Armstrong and Aldrin are physically doing by just listening to them isn’t explained because, it’s absurd.
With one final jab at Nixon, Moe tells the gay director how much he sounds like Nixon. Gay director is disgusted with the comparison. The fake landing shoot is all going to plan but then a black cat runs across the phony moon landing site. Aghast, Moe thinks his career as a spooky Fed is over. Fortunately, the real landing is being broadcast. Moe (aka Nixon) is saved from his own criminal fraud by Jones, and a black cat.
The fade to black is Jones and Davis locking lips. This film was, after all, just a very expensive Hallmark-like rom-com.
Fly Me to the Moon cost 100 million dollars. It was slotted for theaters, but major distributors didn’t want to touch it – likely because they screened the film and thought it was awful. They were right. It tanked in theaters and was moved to Apple TV.
Fly Me to the Moon gets a B+ for DEI virtue signaling.
- The smartest character in the film is a woman.
2. A black engineer saves the day.
3. A super-gay dude is a main character.
4. Two “Nixon is-a-bad-guy” references;
5. Mocked Christianity.
The film needed a disabled lesbian black engineer to design the Saturn V get an A.
This film will only add fuel for conspiracy nuts who still claim the Moon landings were all faked. It doesn’t matter that we can, 2024, see the landing sites and see the equipment left behind 50 years later – nuts will claim those are faked as well.
Fly Me to the Moon gets an F for storyline. Costuming and set design were excellent and the sound mix for the launch was terrific. I watched the whole movie because my wife likes rom-coms and I’m sentimental.
Merry Christmas you filthy animal