Romantic comedies tend to get a lot of flack thanks to their perennial association with the Hallmark machine, but in the right hands, they can be an artistic force to be reckoned with. 6l3ut

Such is very much the case for Fly Me to the Moon, the Greg Berlanti-directed period piece produced by and starring one Scarlett Johansson. Those of you who paid attention to the theatrical ins and outs this summer may have caught wind of this one back in July, but a paltry $42 million against its $100 million budget may suggest otherwise. In any case, it’s finally made it to streaming, where its hearty, charming merits can be more readily feasted upon by a wider audience.

Per FlixPatrol, Fly Me to the Moon is currently the top film on Apple TV Plus at the time of writing, where it was originally slated to debut prior to its theatrical upgrade on of strong test screenings. Toiling under the film’s new regime is Spirited, the more timely comedy flick starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell (third place), and Wolfs, the Brad Pitt-George Clooney outing where they play a pair of bickering fixers (fifth place). Depending on who you ask, all three of these films count as rom-coms.

Fly Me to the Moon stars Johansson as Kelly Jones, an advertising executive with razor-sharp wit and an eye for people, who’s enlisted to help repair the relationship between the American public and NASA; a relationship that’s vital to the country’s success in the Space Race. Here, she meets Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), the launch director of the Apollo 11 mission who takes his job very seriously and is none too pleased about the marketing tactics Kelly uses to prop up NASA’s image. The romantic tension of course becomes too powerful for them, but they nevertheless end up clashing when Kelly’s job is brought to the front of staging a fake moon landing, just in case things go south with the real one.

Interestingly, Tatum’s role was originally going to be filled by Johansson’s MCU co-star Chris Evans, but had to drop out due to scheduling issues; a changeup that single-handedly ruined the lives of everyone who was hinging on a bootleg Black Widow-Captain America romance for their next endorphin hit.

What makes Fly Me to the Moon such a narratively intelligent film is that it understands the importance of putting the romance between Kelly and Cole on the backburner, and instead focusing on the romance inherent to their individual humanity, as well as the romance between the American public and NASA.

This is to say that the thesis of Fly Me to the Moon lies in extrapolating the beauty of something without completely disregarding its less savory components. Cole and Kelly are both severely flawed people who are driven by trauma and unfortunate circumstances, but their maladaptation had a direct hand in bringing the best parts of themselves to life as well. Similarly, no secret is made of the manipulative role that marketing plays in most any relationship between citizens and the institutions they live in, but Fly Me to the Moon doesn’t count out the genuine emotional positives that something like the Space Race — a then-culmination of humanity’s scientific and cooperative potential — might spark in the public, either.

The whole thing is held together by a pair of decisive turns from Johansson and Tatum, whose combined comedic timing, snappy dialogue delivery, and physicality could have made the film watchable just on its own, but thanks to Rose Gilroy’s script, there’s hardly a problem to be had here, Houston.

Jon Watts is one of the most in-demand directors in all of Hollywood right now, having directed the first Spider-Man trilogy for the MCU on top of the Star Wars television series Skeleton Crew, not to mention the hugely successful Wolfs on Apple TV Plus. But even a prolific filmmaker like Watts is having trouble dealing with the industry’s antics, which mostly involve a burning wish to run the entire business to the ground.

There has been a lot of discourse surrounding the business model introduced by Netflix a decade ago and now widely accepted as the norm throughout the entertainment industry. Legendary filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg have made no secret their disdain for what they consider the antithesis of the movie-going experience. The Coen Brothers once rightly observed that “most streaming services just want to buy by the yard.” And you know you’ve messed up when a staunch anti-gatekeeper like Christopher Nolan denounces your entire model and takes his business elsewhere.

For the most part, however, it seems we’ve all but survived the dark years when no one would go to the movies (in no small part prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic) and box office numbers were becoming increasingly more irrelevant. Cinema has made a miraculous recovery over the past couple of years, but even that isn’t going to stop big corporate tycoons from breaking trust and rolling the dice for their benefit.

Take Wolfs, for instance, which, by most s, is a fairly decent comedy thriller starring two of the biggest stars in Hollywood (Prad Bitt and George Clooney) and created by a man who knows what he’s about when he’s behind a camera. Apple had apparently promised Jon Watts a full theatrical release for Wolfs, a deal they went back on a little while before the movie’s release. Watts had been contracted to write a sequel, but now he’s scrapping those plans and cutting ties with Apple because of the studio’s broken promise.

“I showed Apple my final cut of Wolfs early this year,” he told Deadline in a recent interview. “They were extremely enthusiastic about it and immediately commissioned me to start writing a sequel. But their last-minute shift from a promised wide theatrical release to a streaming release was a total surprise and made without any explanation or discussion. I wasn’t even told about it until less than a week before they announced it to the world.”

Imagine that — professionals have standards, and you can’t just renege on a deal without facing the consequences. But if you think that makes Big Corp the villain yet again, just wait until you hear what Apple did next.

“I was completely shocked and asked them to please not include the news that I was writing a sequel,” Watts said. “They ignored my request and announced it in their press release anyway, seemingly to create a positive spin to their streaming pivot. And so I quietly returned the money they gave me for the sequel. I didn’t want to talk about it because I was proud of the film and didn’t want to generate any unnecessary negative press. I loved working with Brad and George (and Amy and Austin and Poorna and Zlatko) and would happily do it again. But the truth is that Apple didn’t cancel the Wolfs sequel. I did, because I no longer trusted them as a creative partner.”

If that’s how streaming moguls like Apple treat industry veterans, imagine the kind of stunts they pull on fresh talent.

In the conversation about film, a picture’s prestige as a piece of art should be the foremost talking point. What ideas does it deal with? How do all the collaborators approach the work? What are the nuances of the storytelling engine? Are they traditionally robust and efficient, or adventurous in a way that pays off?

All much more engaging questions than how it performs from a box office or streaming chart perspective. American Fiction, for instance, made less than half of what Tarot did at the box office, and the latter has occupied top streaming spots for quite a while now.

Now imagine topping a streaming chart — an accomplishment that, given the volatility of viewers’ attention, carries the same weight as spelling your name correctly on your resume — which consists of the same 10-15 movies for most of the year, all while being buoyed by your star power and status as a brand-new movie. I speak, of course, of Wolfs.

Per FlixPatrol, the unceremonious reunion of George Clooney and Brad Pitt — an alliance about as famous as the individuals themselves — has been enjoying a lofty lead at the top of the Apple TV Plus Top 10 film rankings. The caveat to this, of course, is that Apple TV Plus only counts its in-house productions as chart competitors, which number 34 at the time of writing, meaning nearly a third of the platform’s entire library is going to make this list. In other words, no s*** Wolfs is at the top of the charts right now — it’s the new rich kid on a minuscule playground.

The other main caveat to this accomplishment is that Wolfs simply isn’t a great film. There are, of course, far worse positions to be in than a 68% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but Wolfs doesn’t make much of a secret that its raison d’etre is to let Clooney and Pitt riff on one another like it’s the aughts again. To its credit, that specific exercise works pretty well, but when it comes to the creative food chain, narrative deadweight reigns supreme, and the biome of Wolfs is no exception.

So if you’re turning to Apple TV Plus for movie night, your best bet might not be the popular choice. Indeed, for some of the best the platform has to offer, you’ll have far more luck peering outside of the Top 10, where the likes of CODA, Tetris, Swan Song, Fingernails, Fancy Dance, and Wolfwalkers all reside.

As far as chemistry, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are a delight in Wolfs. But this action-comedy lazily toes the line between both genres, without ever truly committing to either. 

Sure, every Clooney-Pitt pairing restores some balance to the world, but there’s only so much two juggernauts can achieve with a plot that underestimates itself. This crime caper offers a fun, exciting, and predictable reunion, but chooses to drag itself behind the charisma of its leads.

In Wolfs, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are fixers – the men to call whenever you want a problem “taken care of.” However, they’re unaware of each other’s existence, and butt heads when they’re hired to clean up on the same job. Cue in their incessant banter, reminiscent of their time together in the Ocean’s franchise. But unlike Ocean’s, there’s not much of a ing cast to shield us from the constant clashing between the two actors. To put it lightly, both Clooney and Pitt, while charming, become insufferable rather quickly, and that’s because there’s not enough material to work with.

Amy Ryan opens the film as the District Attorney in need of professional help, and when the two fixers show up, we bid her farewell. In the same vein, Poorna Jagannathan stars as June, the off-the-table doctor who assists the men with a medical emergency. At just under 1 hour and 48 minutes, one would expect that the combination of Pitt and Clooney are sufficient to keep things fresh. Unfortunately, the monotonous dialogue and tedious scenes overpower their witty back-and-forth as frenemies.

Thankfully, there’s room for a few breaths, as Austin Abrams succeeds in stealing a few scenes, which is a great feat considering the caliber of his co-stars. Although, spending six-minutes in your underwear being chased by Brad Pitt across town is sure to leave you hooked for the time being. Throw in a desperate two-minute monologue about wanting to feel like you belong, and Abrams just might be the backhanded star of Wolfs.

In the midst of the emptiness surrounding them, both Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s unnamed characters excel when they’re simply taking digs at each other. It’s very easy to see the actors in their roles – as two adult fixers with back problems, who still think they’re the best in the game. Perhaps the movie is holding a mirror to the veterans’ lives, as both of them once dominated theaters, but are now left with limited theatrical screenings, before settling comfortably on streaming. Regardless, while they might not move with the speed of their 2000s selves, their verbal quips prove that Clooney and Pitt still possess a star quality that won’t diminish just yet. 

So is Wolfs a vanity project? In a sense, because it’s a pretty good guess that both actors just wanted to spend some together for a while on-screen. It’s also reason enough to believe that Pitt and Clooney are not actively chasing any serious merits, but the simple accolade that they “still got it!” However, with a little extra time in the writer’s room, Wolfs really could have shone as an avenue to showcase the lighter, comedic side of both stars, especially as they trade their swift agility for a few humorous back cracking. Having found a home on Apple TV Plus, Wolfs has a fighting chance to succeed on streaming, but it’s a no-brainer that it’s the Clooney-Pitt effect that will largely contribute to this.

Behind the camera is Jon Watts, the director responsible for the billion-dollar Spider-Man reboot films. For Wolfs, he swaps bright CGI storytelling for a darker, yet incomplete tale with multiple plot holes. The writer and director’s first film since No Way Home targets a more mature audience, but misses the mark by greatly underutilizing two of Hollywood’s biggest names. Being charged with resurrecting the Hollywood bromance is no easy task, but Watts was handed the best kind of bait, but still fails to translate a tried and true bromance onto the screen. Nonetheless, Wolfs is brilliantly shot, with a juxtaposing tone that feels nostalgic, yet fresh. It’s a taste of what Watts could bring to the table post-Marvel, and shows serious promise. Although his pen needs polishing, his eye could very well be the best tool in his arsenal. 

Altogether, Wolfs leaves much to be desired, no matter how much of a visual feast the Clooney-Pitt duo is on screen. With the number of celebrated movies between them, Wolfs will ultimately be lost in the catalogs of these two Hollywood titans. And while a sequel has already been confirmed, it’s going to take a lot more than their appealing gray stubbles, and Sade’s “Smooth Criminal” in the background, to keep viewers entertained.