Directing: C
Acting: B+
Writing: D
Cinematography: B
Editing: C+
Special Effects: C

I lost my patience with this movie within about two minutes.

I want to give the writers of the abysmal script the benefit of the doubt. I’m magnanimous like that. But, a team of three writers is the first of many red flags. The fact that this is the first writer credit on a feature film for all three of them is another. One can only assume they were deluged with boneheaded “notes” by studio executives, because the entire film is packed to the gills with old-school formula.

Let’s skip straight ahead to the moon landing, a pivotal event in this story. This was a real, historic event, a watershed moment, something everyone who lived to witness it never forgot. This was an unforgettable moment for everyone on the planet, but especially for Americans—something that seared itself into memories in a way that was on par with the assassination of President Kennedy, or the attack on Pearl Harbor, or 9/11. The key difference is that this event filled people with awe, gave them hope, and opened their minds to the idea of unlimited possibility. Has such an event ever happened again? Well, I can tell you this: Fly Me to the Moon takes something with massive historic import, and reduces it to a cheap Hollywood plot contrivance.

The more I think about this, the closer I get to being legitimately angry about it. Does nothing have meaning anymore? Maybe I’m just becoming an old crank. Fly Me to the Moon bombed hard, earning all of 10% of its budget its opening weekend. The people who didn’t bother were the correct ones. Much like the endless parade of gullible goofs who cross paths with Scarlett Johansson’s Kelly Jones character, I fell for a skilled but misleading marketing campaign.

It’s a fun premise, after all: an advertising wiz is hired to sell the dream of the Moon Landing to both the American people, who are losing interest after nearly a decade of promise; and Congress, who are skeptical that NASA is worth the cost. Kelly Jones butts heads with Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), the director of the program, all while telegraphing their utterly predictable romantic arc. A shady government official (Woody Harrelson, in a part that truly can’t decide on the character’s vibe) representing President Nixon shows up to order a live shoot of the Moon Landing on a soundstage, “just in case.” Kelly hires a down-and-out director (Jim Rash) who is an over-the-top gay stereotype.

If there’s anything genuinely good to say about this movie, it’s the undeniable onscreen presence and charisma of its two leads—although it must be said that Tatum’s haircut looks stupid. To be fair, Johansson’s teased-out hairdos are often not much better. Still, they perform their dialogue with genuinely impressive commitment. If they were passionate about this project, though, I just don’t know how to defend that.

This is a movie with a running bit about a black cat crossing paths and causing bad luck, which figures prominently in a pivotal moment of the shoot. There are too many details in this movie that I can’t get past, which never once feels like a plausible representation of what actually happened at NASA in 1969. In one scene, Kelly is the one who calls “action” in the moon landing rehearsal, even though her hired director is right there. In another scene, Kelly Jones is shredding documents at a shredding machine . . . that happens to be right there on set. What? We literally got to see her get introduced to her office, why the hell would she pull a photo copier-sized paper shredder out into the middle of what is functionally an airplane hangar? Well, that “moon landing” set makes for a nice backdrop.

Whoever greenlit this movie should be horsewhipped. It completely wastes genuine talent while making a mockery of the historic record, and disingenuously pretending to have respect for science. Fly Me to the Moon clearly thinks it’s being uniquely clever, taking a longstanding (and, by definition, idiotic) conspiracy theory about the moon landing being faked, and presenting a scenario in which an attempted fake (spoiler alert!) actually failed.

I genuinely could not get over how dumb this movie is. There are times when a movie is contrived in typical ways, but it somehow wins me over, with its performers, or how entertaining it is, or perhaps even a self-knowledge about what kind of movie it is. There doesn’t seem to be any self-awareness to Fly Me to the Moon at all. The way the scenes are edited, the transparently manipulative score, the way none of the dialogue has any ring of truth to it—all of this was clear from the very start. I’m a fan of Scarlett Johansson, a rare specimen of equal beauty and talent. There are scenes in this movie where she actually, somehow, manages to captivate. But they are few and far between, and I spent all that other time marveling at every stupid narrative choice. I feel dumber for having seen it.

*They only chose this angle for this screenshot so that Channing Tatum’s hair would look less stupid.*

Overall: C-