‘Flies On the Wall’

By Dan Hudak

The animated adventure Fly Me to the Moon takes off Friday.

It was the summer of ’69, and revolution was in the air. Woodstock defined a generation, the Mets were on the verge of a miraculous run to the pennant, and three flies hopped on board Apollo 11 and witnessed the first moon landing. Wait, what?

Okay, so Fly Me to the Moon requires a bit of imagination, but it’s an entertaining 3-D adventure that is also a fun and involving way to teach kids a little history.

The computer-generated animation literally allows us to be “flies on the wall” aboard Apollo 11, although the perpetual fear of getting swatted is a concern. Young fly Nat (Trevor Gagnon) knows there’s more to life than what’s in the grass, and with his grandpa’s (Christopher Lloyd) tall tales of waking Amelia Earhart during her famous flight across the Atlantic, Nat is desperate to do something wild.

Fortunately for Nat, Cape Canaveral is nearby, and he’s seen on the news that a mission to the moon is about to take off. He gathers friends Scooter (David Gore) and I.Q. (Philip Bolden), and together they stow away aboard the ship … and experience everything that only Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins got to see firsthand. Their moms (one of whom is voiced by Kelly Ripa) are naturally worried sick, and of course there are Russian flies named Yegor (Tim Curry) and Poopchev (Ed Begley Jr.) threatening the safety of the mission. Fortunately Grandpa’s old flame Nadia (Nicollette Sheridan) may be able to help.

Granted, the concept has all the gravity of, well, a ride in space, but darn if it isn’t endearing enough to keep us interested. Writer Domonic Paris’ exposition is a bit long (it takes about a half-hour to get into space) and the conflict with the Russians is certainly far-fetched, but children at a recent screening were captivated throughout. For the older crowd the movie is a whimsical adventure with historical trinkets that keep our attention.

Director Ben Stassen uses the 3-D impressively, but in a different way than we saw in Journey to the Center of the Earth earlier this summer. Yes, both will have you reaching for the screen as things come at you, but the animation inherently creates an alternate reality in which anything is possible, whereas the live action of Journey suggests that some amount of reality is present. With animation we’re inside the lunchboxes and helmets of humans, and we can notice a bug start very small on the screen and within seconds be “flying” into our faces.

The voice work is solid, with the gravelly voiced Lloyd as Nat’s grandfather doing an especially nice job of imbuing the movie with a sense of wonder. It was with wonder and awe that many watched the original moon landing in 1969, and because Stassen and Co. match that sensation – even if only for a brief 84 minutes – the mission of Fly Me to the Moon is accomplished.