Studio: 20th Century Fox
Plot: A woman is caught between a covert CIA agent and those he claims set him up.
Cast: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Maggie Grace, Viola Davis, Peter Sarsgaard
Rating: PG-13
Bottom Line: ***1/2
By Laurence Washington
“Mission Impossible” meets “Romancing the Stone” in “Knight and Day,” a charming, romantic action-comedy that has the relentless action of any high-octane film to date.
My only complaint is that the filmmakers used too much CGI in the countless car chases, explosions and crashes. “Knight and Day” is an eye-candy overdose of “Ka-boom!” However, the baby shouldn’t be thrown out with the bath water.
The film opens with charismatic Tom Cruise (Roy) and Cameron Diaz (June) literally bumping into each other several times at the airport. Of course their meeting is a contrived setup full of nonstop one-liners, banter and flirtation. Thirty thousand feet later,
Roy reveals himself as a Jason Bourne type super spy who dispatches a jetliner full of assassins while June (whose hoping to join the Mile-High Club) is prepping in the bathroom. When June comes out of the bathroom, Roy explains to her that has killed everyone on the airplane (including the pilots) and he’s going to crash land the jet.
Once on the ground, Roy tells June she has to stay close to him, because other assassins will try to capture her, thinking she can convince Roy to surrender the battery. Oh, did I forget to mention the baddies in the film are bent on retrieving a self-charging pocket-size battery that can power anything from an i-Pod to a nuclear whatever…? And that Roy hid the device in June’s carry on luggage and that’s how this whole spy vs. spy business started? Sorry about that.
Don’t worry I’m not too much away, this is just the first 20 minutes of the film. “Knight and Day” is a perpetual globetrotting chase film that jumps from Kankakee, Ill. to Spain that thankfully has no pretense of realism or taking itself seriously. Which is OK, because otherwise it wouldn’t work. The running joke in the film is Roy’s cool demeanor under-fire and his constant reassurance to June that everything going to be fine – despite thousands of bullets whizzing past their heads. Smart and sexy, “Knight and Day” is what summer movies are all about.
This was originally printed in the July 4, 2010 – July 17, 2010 edition
