“Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars. Da da dum dum dum dum da dum, Jupiter and Mars…” Okay, I don’t know all the words but how could you not want to sing that iconic Tony Bennett song when you hear the title of the new and mostly fun Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum film?
Johansson stars as Kelly Jones, an ultra slick and super smart marketing guru in New York City who is recruited by shadowy government official, Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), to get NASA’s Apollo space program back into the public consciousness because the cost of the Vietnam war is tempting Congress to defund it. After reluctantly accepting his offer, not because she wanted to but because ole’ Moe has a little somethin’ somethin’ on her past, she and her assistant, Ruby (Anna Garcia), head to Cocoa Beach. She quickly has a “meet cute” with Tatum’s Cole Davis, the head guy in charge of the up-coming Apollo 11 mission.
Because this is a romantic comedy, the pair have their fair amount of clashes while simultaneously showing their fondness for each other; i.e. quick glances in the other’s direction. But when Moe intervenes and demands that she stage a fake moon landing in case the Apollo mission fails, things start to get really heated between them.
Johansson and Tatum have a great on-screen chemistry together but that only takes the film so far. One big thing is it’s way too long, coming in in a little over 2 hours. Director Greg Berlanti could have easily trimmed some scenes down, especially in the second and third acts where things seem to get a bit bogged down with too much plot.
That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot that’s good though, because there are plenty of funny moments, especially when Jim Rash shows up as Lance Vespertine, the director of the fake footage. He’s the kind of snotty nosed, obnoxious director you’ve seen before in hundreds of other films, but Rash turns the dial up 20 notches and just kills it every time he’s on screen. And his back and forth with Harrelson during those scenes were some of the best parts of the film. [Incidentally, why are the most obnoxious characters usually named Lance? Asking for… a friend.] There’s also a really fun part that has Mr. Scarlett Johansson himself, Colin Jost, as a doofus senator.
We haven’t had a big screen romantic comedy catering to adults, so the film is a bright moment during these hot summer days and nights. But I do have one request for the writers behind the film, Rose Gilroy who wrote the screenplay and Bill Kirstein and Keenan Flynn who wrote the initial story: Can you give Harrelson’s character his own film? He was terrific here and it would be awesome to see him put his mitts in everything from Watergate to the death of Elvis. Who’s with me?
