I was not excited to go see this movie. It did not resonate with me with the trailers and any sort of comments that I had heard of it. Then, with it being around two hours and fifteen minutes long, I just was not anxious to see it.

Boy, was I wrong.

I loved this movie. This film, starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, featured a great story of these two characters mixed in with the story of the launch of Apollo 11 and the eventual moon landing.

Scarlett Johansson played Kelly Jones, a marketing master, is brought in by the government, particularly shadowy agent Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), to help sell the idea of the NASA program to the public. Kelly ran into a conflict at the beginning with Cole Davis, launch director, as she did several things that Cole did not want to happen. As they continued their story, the pair grew closer though a secret from Kelly’s past threatened to tear them apart.

The film included the conspiracy theory that the moon landing was faked, and it blended this in with the real situation that was going on. This use of this legend was really well done and provided some of the romantic comedy’s best comedic moments. (I do not think this was a spoiler since the trailers did included this detail).

I loved the performance of Johansson in this movie. Kelly was strong and intelligent, able to manipulate those around her to get what she was after, and yet had a softness that told you that something tragic had happened in her past. Johansson and Tatum had good chemistry, but there could have been a scene or two more that focused on their relationship. It did seem as if Tatum went from trying to get her fired to being all in with her too quickly.

Woody Harrelson’s character was great too. I enjoyed the sleaziness of his character and how he was able to use his power to convince people to do what he wanted. He was an antagonist that was not exactly an antagonist.

The film was very clever and charming and flew by, making my doubts about the runtime bleed away. Fly Me to the Moon was a lot of fun and I had a blast with it.

4.5 stars