Knight and Day Review

You have to set aside disbelief if you're going to enjoy Knight and Day, the new movie starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Crusie plays Roy Miller, a spy on the run who's hiding a new energy source. Diaz plays June Havens, a restorer of vintage cars. They meet on a plane which happens to have other spies who are crew members. June goes to the head and the spies attempt to kill Cruise in an entertaining action sequence in which Roy dispatches all of them. When June comes out, she finds everyone dead and Cruise crash lands the plane. Roy drugs June and returns her to her Boston home. This is where you've got to suspend your disbelief because Roy later kidnaps June for her own protection and she willingly decides to go with him. Yeah, like I get kidnapped everyday and believe my kidnapper's story about killing a whole bunch of people.

Okay, if Jennifer Aniston kidnapped me, I'll go with her. And that's what drives Knight and Day. Tom Cruise is at his absolute charming best. Still handsome, he has grown with age. He doesn't come off as a young jerk anymore. Cameron Diaz is cute as the women taken from her dull life and swept away in an adventure of international intrigue. Okay, it's a little like a romance novel. But so what? There's humor and fun for adults in this film.

Director James Mangold wisely films the actions sequences with as little CGI as he can. And it works. They come off as real rather than crazy and phony over the top set pieces. While Patrick O'Neill's script requires you to simply ignore the lack of logic, it still features nice touches of humor amidst all the globe hopping. There are some groan worthy parts, especially where Diaz is drugged and begs Cruise to express his affection for her in the middle of a gun battle. He goes over and kisses her amidst the flying bullets. Oy. But again, it's the winning chemistry of Cruise and Diaz which carries the film. And that makes it a perfect date movie.

Knight and Day is a fun action romantic comedy. The grade is B.



Star Trek Alert: In one scene, fellow Trekkers, I think Tom Cruise used the Vulcan neck pinch on Cameron Diaz to knock her out.