Review: Knight and Day

If you put a big dollop of Roger Moore era Bond, add a pinch of some of the Bourne films exterior action shots, pepper in a bit of Romancing the Stone's comic dialogue and the bit where Tom Cruise rides the motorbike in Mission Impossible and you kind of get the idea of what Knight and Day is trying to do. Although this is a spy film and its very much about Tom Cruise's Roy Miller, possibly the most American name ever, most of the film follows Cameron Diaz's innocent bystander June. June and Roy meet on a plane which crashes after Roy shoots everyone on it, because they're after him he then drugs June. The next day June's life starts to unravel as she is chased by the FBI and then tracked down by Roy as he tries to outrace both the bureau and some international arms dealers. Like with The A-Team there is a ridiculous MacGuffin, this time its a battery that can control the energy of the whole world or something and its kept in a little tin knight, hence Knight and Day. But this film is mainly about the shooting, the glamorous locations (Austria, Spain, the Tropics) and the chemistry between the two leads. Cruise and Diaz do have a little something going on which may be because they worked together almost ten years ago on Vanilla Sky. Cruise is actually fairly impressive almost revisiting his Top Gun days as he adds an ounce of boyish charm and even a slice of wit to Roy. But Diaz isn't on form and at times outdoes Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man in terms of whining on at a leading man in action film. The fact we have to buy into the premise that Diaz is a mechanic who restores old cars in the first place kind of drizzles away when we find out how stupid and underwritten the character is.

However there is a sense of fun throughout the film which both The A-Team and The Losers lost in their second halves. The international locales allow for some novel set pieces including a fight on a train involving some sausages, a rooftop scurmish over Austria and a car chase during the Running of The CGI Bulls in Spain. The supporting cast has been comprised of actors, such as Paul Dano, Viola Davis and Peter Sarsgaard, who are more known for their roles in weightier films which does earn the film a little bit of pull. The script is incredibly lazy, the entire motivation for what most of the characters do is given as expositional speech for Tom Cruise to deliver in about two minutes. Roy also drugs June from time to time, and she always ends up in a different location, which for me means that the screenwriter couldn't think of any way from getting the characters from one location to another. But if you don't think too hard and want just a brainless summer romp I would recommend this over any of this season's offerings so far but I think that may change when The Expendables is released.