Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Jim Rash, Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson
OUR RATING: ★★★½
Story: Sony and Apple TV+ comedy-drama directed by Greg Berlanti and written by Rose Gilroy. Fly Me to the Moon (2024) is set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing, and follows marketing maven Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) and NASA launch director Cole Davis’s (Channing Tatum). As Jones is brought in to fix NASA’s public image, sparks fly in all directions, wreaking havoc on Davis’s already difficult task. When the White House deems the mission too important to fail, Jones is directed to stage a fake moon landing as back-up and the countdown truly begins.
Fly Me to the Moon is available to watch on Apple TV+.
Best Quotes from Fly Me to the Moon
Cole Davis: Every day, every day, something is breaking around here. Or blowing up. We’re underfunded, understaffed. But, yeah, we’re still expected to beat the pants off the Russians. You mind telling me how the hell we’re supposed to do that?
Henry Smalls: Could start by being a little nicer to the vending machines.
Lance Vespertine: You know what, Kelly, I didn’t come in here to be berated. I came in to be agreed with!
Kelly Jones: Now, what do we call you, right? The Kubrick of commercials.
Lance Vespertine: Oh, my God. Stanley is a hack. He does one good movie, and suddenly he’s a genius.
Moe Berkus: Name’s Moe Berkus. I work for the president’s office.
Kelly Jones: Of what company?
Moe Berkus: The president.
Moe Berkus: Hey, I have dozens of IDs, and my real name’s not Moe.
Kelly Jones: With all the names you could’ve picked, you landed on Moe?
Kelly Jones: We are working for NASA to sell the moon. Nobody disagrees about the moon. No. You and I both know that everywhere around us every day something terrible is happening. Everywhere. Except in space.
Cole Davis: Miss, you’re on fire.
Kelly Jones: Very original. No, I do not want to stop, drop, and roll with you.
Cole Davis: No, your book is on fire.
Cole Davis: Just as a rule of thumb, alcohol and flames, they like each other.
Cole Davis: [to Kelly] I wasn’t being honest. If I was being honest, I’d have told you you’re the most beautiful woman that I’ve seen in longer than I can remember, and I have a very good memory. All I really want to do is just buy you a drink and talk to you for hours. But I can’t, so I’m trying really hard to just forget that you’re here.
Ruby Martin: [referring to Cole] Well, at least he’s easy on the eyes.
Kelly Jones: He’s hard on the ears though.
Ruby Martin: You know what they say about black cats.
Kelly Jones: If they cross your path, they’re probably going someplace else.
Cole Davis: [to Henry, referring to Kelly] She got a fake me and a fake you. You can’t fake me and you.
Moe Berkus: [to Cole] If she’s made you the belle of the ball, why don’t you just slip on your tutu and do some dancing?
Kelly Jones: Do you have anything close to a salad?
Wolfie’s Joe: Pickles come on a burger.
Kelly Jones: [to Cole] Does it bother you that a room dies every time you walk into it?
Kelly Jones: It’s called selling. We’re not lying to the customer. We’re changing the way they think.
Cole Davis: No. it’s called lying.
Cole Davis: NASA’s not something that you sell with a jingle and a slogan.
Kelly Jones: And NASA’s not just a logo, it’s people. People who wake up every morning and commit to accomplishing the impossible. And all while wearing the same underwear as the rest of us.
Cole Davis: I’m drawing the line at toilet paper though, because the world does not get to know what our guys wipe their a** with.
Kelly Jones: Well, s**t.
Cole Davis: Out of all her bad ideas, this one is the worst.
Moe Berkus: Actually, the president loves it. So, now it’s a great idea.
Moe Berkus: Pilots fight gravity. It’s part of their nature.
Cole Davis: I don’t think that our sad stories are supposed to teach us how to survive the world. I think they’re supposed to make us want to change it.
Moe Berkus: [to Kelly] No one can outrun their past. But I can make it go away. Forever. No more running.
Kelly Jones: [referring to filming a fake moon landing] No one can ever know what we’re doing.
Lance Vespertine: I cannot accept that.
Kelly Jones: They will shoot you.
Lance Vespertine: What is my budget?
Kelly Jones: I think we should have gotten Kubrick.
Lance Vespertine: [to the fake astronaut] I want you to walk as if you’re carrying your mother across the desert. She’s frail, but also heavy.
Lance Vespertine: My Armstrong is a whiny, little b**ch. We have to recast.
Kelly Jones: No. We’re not recasting.
Lance Vespertine: Alright. Well, mediocre it is.
Cole Davis: [referring to the Apollo 1 deaths] You said they wouldn’t ask about it.
Kelly Jones: Yeah. Well, they lied. You know, people do that sometimes, Cole.
Cole Davis: Well, I can’t think of a greater act of faith than pursuing the stars.
Kelly Jones: You really sold the hell out of that.
Cole Davis: I wasn’t selling. For the record, you can win people over just by being who you are.
Moe Berkus: This isn’t just a race for the moon. It is a race for which ideology gets to run things.
Cole Davis: [to Kelly] If you fake this mission, every single thing that we have sacrificed will have been for nothing.
Moe Berkus: The mission isn’t about landing on the moon anymore. It is about the world watching America beat Russia on TV.
Kelly Jones: [to Cole] I lied to so many people. The worst lies were the ones I told myself. That everybody does it. You know. It’s just a big game. But then I came down here. I met you. I learned what it was like to be a part of something real.
Kelly Jones: I promise this is the last time I will trick anyone into getting what I want. I promise.
Cole Davis: Do you think you can do it without lying?
Kelly Jones: Absolutely not.
Cole Davis: Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Moe Berkus: That’s really the moon? Jesus, it looks fake
Kelly Jones: I had a billion-dollar TV show for an audience of one. Hope you enjoyed it.
Moe Berkus: It was a perfect failure.
Moe Berkus: [to Kelly] It would’ve been a real doozy to explain how the cat ended up on the moon. You’re a goddamn American hero.
Kelly Jones: Are there really aliens out there?
Moe Berkus: They walk among us.
Kelly Jones: Truth is still the truth, even if nobody believes it. Lie is still a lie, even if everybody believes it.
Cole Davis: [after he kisses her] Was that fake?
Kelly Jones: No, that felt very real.