Movie: Fly Me To The Moon

Denis secured some free passes to an advanced screening of the movie “Fly Me To The Moon” which is a 3D animated movie coming out in August. He had hoped to get four passes but only got two, so he kindly let me take CG on Sunday morning to see the movie. It was weird seeing a movie at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

We got there around 9 a.m. because in NYC when we’d go to advanced screenings the line would be down the block hours in advance of the doors opening. Not willing to take a chance, we got there at 9 a.m. and were…almost the first ones there. *lol* The only other folks in the theater when we walked in were the old geezers who see advanced screenings as a hobbie. In fact, I laughed out loud when an older woman shuffled in shouting, “There’s nothing like a movie first thing in the morning!” and an old man behind me hollered, “Hey, Doris – howareya this morning?” “I’m great, Stu, howareyou?” It cracked me up that the advanced screening culture is alive in well in Charlotte, only for the older subset. In NYC it’s post-college kids that are the advanced screening geeks who know each other (a couple of Denis’ friends were such animals and we had the benefit of seeing a lot of advanced screenings thanks to those friendships).

So we had 3D glasses which CG was loathe to wear (obviously remembering the awful 3D experiences she had at Disney in May). When the first 3D scene came up (a dragonfly flying in our direction) she whipped the glasses off. But then when the cartoon characters came onscreen she was more interested. It also helped that I told her this would NOT be a scary movie. She would periodically take off her glasses and I would urge her to put them back on so she wouldn’t be watching a blurry movie. Finally, about 20 minutes into the movie, she kept the glasses on and began trying to reach out and touch the various things coming out of the screen.

It was a very cute, kid-friendly movie that can definitely be seen by kids as young as four years old and still be enjoyed. The 3D effects were FANTASTIC and made me wish for more 3D movies in the future. I imagine the movie will be just as amazing in regular formatting as well, but the 3D version was amazingly detailed (I bet the Blu-Ray version will be, too).

The website has some of the 3D frames up on the website. If you have 3D glasses at your disposal (and who doesn’t?), then definitely go check them out.

The movie is about three young houseflies who seek adventure, and decide to hitch a ride on Apollo 11 as it blasts off for the moon. Voice talents include Christopher Lloyd, Kelly Ripa, and Tim Curry, to name a few. The movie will definitely encourage kids to become interested in the space program. And who knows – maybe some day we really WILL make it to the moon!!**

4 1/2 droplets of space orange juice out of five.

** I threw that in for my family, who knows that I’m a bit skeptical about whether we’ve really been to the moon given the fact that we’ve made NO REAL PROGRESS in the space program since we supposedly landed on the moon in 1969. How on earth can a country that has come so far technologically in the past 40 years not have done ANYTHING more advanced with the space program in all that time? The answer? Because we haven’t actually been to the moon at all. That’s why.