Wwould you like to watch a goofy romcom about Bill Gates conspiring to implant 5G into millions of Americans’ bodies using the Covid vaccine – but hilariously finding out at the last minute that he doesn’t need it because they all have got 5G on their phones anyway? Well, in the absence of all that, how about this relentlessly mediocre and misjudged romcom about how the US government planned to fake the moon landing in case the real one tanks?
Scarlett Johansson stars as wily ad exec Kelly Jones who is sent in the late ’60s to throw some PR rocket fuel into Nasa’s flagging publicity campaign, using her Madison Avenue tricks to convince wavering publics and politicians that it’s still to pour tax dollars into the Apollo moon mission. a good idea At the same time, she falls for straight-arrow launch director Cole Davis, played by Channing Tatum with a weird proto-combover hairstyle and heavy pancake makeup. But Kelly is bullied by CIA man Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) into faking an alternate landing in a makeshift studio (kept secret from Davis) to use if the real one doesn’t work out—or even if it does. out because they need the right kind of dramatic pictures.
Peter Hyams invented this idea for his 1978 movie Capricorn One about a fake Mars landing and then there was a real satirical point, the cynicism and nihilism that makes generic sense. But here the romance and adventure of the actual Apollo 11 feat is subverted for a grinning, tonally shocking non-laugh.
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