Movie Review: Knight & Day (12A)

Jenness Mitchell • Published 11 Aug 2010 10:22 0 Comments

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After their outing in 2001's Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz take to the screen again with action caper Knight And Day.

From the very beginning production was stifled with cast, director and writer changes. James Mangold took over the helm from previous director Tom Dey, Cruise and Diaz stood in place for Chris Tucker and Eva Mendes, and after the contribution of 12 plus writers, only Patrick O'Neill was given credit.

This can be problematic for a movie as the overall theme may not flow continually, and to be honest, Knight And Day seems to have fallen a little flat because of this.

During a flight to Boston for her sister's wedding, car restorer June Havens (Diaz) finds herself embroiled in national espionage after a chance meeting with rogue spy Roy Miller (Cruise).

Although Roy delivers June back home unharmed, she is soon picked up by the FBI and is interrogated while en-route to a "safe and secure place" (code words for about to be killed) on what information she may or may not have.

Roy comes quickly to the rescue guns blazing and when he eventually gets June on her own the audience are filled in on how Roy was assigned to watch over genius inventor Simon Feck (Paul Dano) who on creating a perpetual energy battery, codenamed Zephyr, has had to go into hiding from Special Agent Fitzgerald (Peter Saarsgard) and Spanish arms dealer Antonio (Jordi Molla) who want the battery no matter what cost.

The story itself offers enough twists to make you question if Roy is the good guy, but along the way the spine of the movie is watching June develop from a character who has never been anywhere in her life to a kick-ass gun-wielding chick enjoying a world of adventure on beaches, off grid and train rides through the Alps.

The special effects and action scenes were entertaining, but nothing awe-inspiring. One of the running jokes in the movie is how Roy continually drugs June so as to transport her from place to place. This saves screen time so as one minute the characters can be within a warehouse, the next on a beach.

The audience are given enough snippets to imagine the action in-between. This was a bit script sloppy, but the budget depended on it.

The script could be charged with being too forced, however the humour was enjoyable and not excruciating.

Cruise has weight to his acting ability, but with the script being a little too jovial I kept wondering why he would sign onto such an underdeveloped movie.

Knight And Day to me was like a poor man's Mission Impossible, with Roy Miller a lighter, crazier and more daring Ethan Hunt.

If the script was darker, the violence a tad neater and the characters given slightly more back-story, this could have been quite an excellent film.

If Knight And Day bombs at the box office, this is not down to Cruise.

As usual he put in a solid effort and saved a lacklustre story, as did Diaz who was her usual charming self with her wide blue eyes sparkling up the screen.

If anything the director and screenwriter should have looked to include more of the cast as they had a stellar line-up with Peter Saarsgard (An Education, Boys Don't Cry), Viola Davis (Doubt, Solaris) and Jordi Molla (Blow, Elizabeth: The Golden Age).

Knight And Day is fun, but not fabulous.

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