• the217
• Movies + TV
• Knight and Day isn't nearly fun enough

Related Media

Related Video

The action comedy is back with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz reuniting a decade after both staring in Vanilla Sky in director James Mangold’s Knight and Day. But this spoof is more of an awkward combination of Mission Impossible-lite and the pace of the Bourne movies. Mangold, who has directed action well (3:10 to Yuma) and romantic adventure (Kate and Leopold) can’t pull off the combination here due to the surprising lack of chemistry between his leads.

Cruise is Roy Miller, a rouge government agent who literally runs into Jane Havens (Diaz) at a Kansas airport; she’s on her way home to Boston for her sister’s wedding. As it turns out he’s hiding a top secret perpetual energy power source, the size of a large AA sized battery, called the Zephyr. Miller was assigned to protect the inventor (Simon Feck) from counter agents who wish to sell the power source to international arms dealers. The mystery involves whether we believe Roy is still working for the government or himself. Peter Sarsgaard, who was so wonderful in An Education, is government agent Fitzgerald who tracks Miller around the world.

After their plane crashes and nearly two hours of high speed car, helicopter and motorcycle chases through a plethora of beautiful cities, Patrick O’Neill’s script unsuccessfully tries to evoke the charm of minor Cary Grant works or the humor of Hitchcock films of the past. But non-stop action alone doesn’t make us care about the plight of the film’s main characters—especially when there is so little sexual spark between them.

Wearing his Risky Business sunglasses, Cruise is doing a slightly comical version of his Mission Impossible character, with a stern face that registers three simple emotions: surprise, confusion and pleasure. On the other hand, Diaz who has one of Hollywood’s most radiant sexy smiles, does little else but grimace, whine and scream a lot. Many summer moviegoers will undeniably enjoy the mindless videogame suspense and bloodless violence the film provides, but most expect this should have been more fun and engaging.