Fly Me to the Moon
August. 15,2008 GThree young houseflies stow away aboard the Apollo 11 flight to the moon.
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Reviews
Best movie ever!
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
The movie is fine; and fun for kids who are in the bug stage. I never took cartoons at face value even as a kid and I am not seeing my daughter do it either. If the flies not being perfect are what you are worrying about as opposed to the idea that flies talk than this movie is not for you. I have never met a child who could not point out a fly or an ant, or a potato bug, etc...As to the patriotism - a bit here and there doesn't hurt - we have lost our way a bit and maybe some good patriotism can help us find some pride in the good we have done, either way I doubt this movie will affect anyone all that much. Saying that note that patriotism is not nationalism, though I know the universities tell you that.
I, also having endured hundreds of children's movies in the past, consider this to be one of the worst I have ever seen.1) I resent in this day and age having to explain to my children that Russia is not "the bad guys". Also, that mocking Russian names like "Poopchev" is inappropriate.2) The grandfather fly's birthday party scene contained a quasi-sexist joke in which he implied that males drink beer and women talk on the phone. Two other flies also needlessly use the word "crap" twice.3) The whole movie largely smacks of 1950's stereotypes and propaganda that I thought we, as a nation, were proud to have risen above.In all it's just crude, badly animated, even more badly written and not worth wasting the time to view.
Okay, so, someone, somewhere, a few years ago, thought it would be a good idea to make a 3D IMAX movie about some flies stowing away aboard the Apollo 11 and going to the moon. So they did. Someone, somewhere, was an idiot.I want to give the artists props for doing their homework on the hardware. As far as I can tell, the rockets and the launch hardware were bang on. The graphics in general were pretty good - the rocket launch gave me chills, like a good rocket launch always does (my Popular Mechanics flying-car gearhead blood still runs strong) and the 3D was pretty effective. The CG wasn't Pixar-quality, but it was generally good. The flies were kinda mediocre anthropomorphics, with some half-assed late-60s characters thrown in for colour (hippie flies, African-American flies with giant afros and black shades, etc.) and the maggots looked more like grubs with human baby heads (although they made suitably gross squelching noises).The scriptwriters certainly did not do their homework, relying on offensive and outdated clichés (60s gender politics including mostly-useless female characters, racial stereotypes, evil Russians, a fat fly who only wants to eat, grade-two level gross-out humour). In a movie aimed for IMAX, they blew a wonderful opportunity to sneak in some educational content about physics and space travel - they didn't get their physics right (zero-g in the Lunar Module during landing burn? PLEASE.) They couldn't even be bothered to read the original radio transcripts between Houston and the astronauts, all of which is in the public domain; instead they wrote their own dialogue, which sounds like crap.But we liked the maggots.So they get a point and a half for rockets and maggots. Uh, yay. 1.5/5.
I read today a horrible review for this film by yet another jaded reviewer. It was by far one of the nastiest reviews I've read by one of these monkeys in a long time. Look, this is not a perfect film, but it is neither a bad film. So often reviewers seem to want all films to be Dr. Zivago or Gone With the Wind, or whatever is politically correct at the time. Point is, see movies for what they are intended to be. What a concept.So what is this film all about? It is a movie for kids that is in all honesty not up to Pixar standards, but not a bad film at all. The main purpose is to inspire a new generation of kids to explore and is very pro space exploration. It is so important to give young people something special to which they can aspire. As such, I think this film succeeds quite well. The 3D effects were very good, and definitely eye popping! So go and take they young ones, this is an event they will remember, and who knows, one day a man or woman may set foot on the moon or even Mars, and credit this film with inspiring them! That is what it is all about! The best review of this film came form a young girl, who as she exited the theater proclaimed to all, "this is the greatest film ever!". That review from the target audience pretty much says it all!