Knight and Day — a good time despite bad effects
I would be lying if I said this was great. I would also be lying if I said this wasn’t fabulously entertaining. “Knight and Day,” starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, walks the fine line between utter disaster and top-flight action movie.
Cruise plays Roy Miller, a spy who may or may not be completely off the reservation, mentally and physically. Diaz is June, an auto mechanic who has the misfortune of boarding a plane full of assassins out to kill Miller. He lands the plane in a field and from that point on, this movie goes in so many different directions, a Garmin would get lost.
The plot of this movie is so inconsequential, it’s almost pointless to give it a second thought. Miller is protecting a young scientist who has created, for all practical purposes, the first perpetual motion machine. Miller has him stashed somewhere and is trying to draw out a mole in the government agency who is chasing him. June is on her way home for her sister’s wedding and has a suitcase full of car parts that she is carrying on the plane, like that would ever, EVER happen in today’s world. These two characters are thrown together and must keep one step ahead of …. It doesn’t matter, really, because all of this is just an excuse for some really spectacular action scenes that sporadically contain some of the worst CGI ever to appear in a big-budget action film. The fight scene on the airplane in the beginning of the film is tremendous. Cruise gets to display the physicality that no man in his mid-40s should possess. His athletic ability, to me, has always been his strongest attribute and it is on full display here. Whether it’s a fist fight, a gun battle or a car chase, he is great at all of it, but it almost gets ruined with the unbelievably bad airplane effects. None of it looks real.
Another example — there is a motorcycle chase in Spain during the Running of the Bulls. Cool concept. It’s really well-done when all the action is real. But, unfortunately, most of it is done with computer effects that are truly terrible. I don’t think one single bull in the chase is real.
“Knight and Day” is written and directed by James Mangold, who made the underrated “Copland” and the very uneven Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line.” This being his first real action movie, it’s clear Mangold overwrote some of this. The action sequences are cool in concept but impossible to pull off, hence all the special effects. It’s too bad because he has a good grip on the pacing and tone of the movie.
The closest thing to compare this to is “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” the 2004 film with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The problem is, where Smith succeeds because of the great chemistry between its two leads, “Knight and Day” is almost completed devoid of it. Cruise and Diaz try really hard, mind you. They both deliver solid performances, particularly Cruise. He does the smirky, possibly crazy man of action very well. He never plays it too seriously and clearly is having a ton of fun.
Diaz just doesn’t click. She’s great to look at and has pretty good comedic timing, but she doesn’t work for me. Part of it the script. Her character isn’t developed properly. There is a scene where she talks to herself in the bathroom of an airplane, and that is supposed to give us a bit of insight into her character, but it’s too on the nose and feels like an afterthought. The context of it is actually clever. While she is pumping herself up to go out and talk to Miller, he is killing everyone on the plane. The dialog is just poor. The fact that it takes place during the best action sequence in the film is a bit disappointing.
This movie is a lot of fun despite all the things that don’t work. The action is insane and Tom Cruise is a blast. It’s worth seeing for him alone. Just be prepared for it not to make a lot of sense. You will know who the villain is right away and how the thing will end, but it’s a fun ride.
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