Movie Review: Knight and Day

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Comedy and action combine for a fun movie

Cons: Could have used more action and comedy

The Bottom Line:

Light comedic tone

And improbable action

Combine for fun film

"Nobody Follows Us or I'll Kill Myself and Then Her!"

I've got to admit, I'd heard bad things about Knight and Day almost from the start.  No one seemed to think it would be good, so I wrote it off.  Then I saw the first preview, and it looked like fun.  So I decided to take a chance and actually watch it.

June Havens (Cameron Diaz) is trying to get back home to Boston as quickly as possible.  She's thrilled when she is able to get on an earlier flight, especially when it seems that the flight is mostly empty.  She begins talking to Roy Miller (Tom Cruise), a man she literally bumped into a couple times before boarding the flight.

Then things take a turn toward the unexpected.  While June is in the bathroom, everyone on the plane except Roy is killed.  He tells her some story about agents coming to question her before she passes out from drugs.  Next thing she knows, she is home.  And then the agents come and start questioning her.  Is Roy a good guy or a bad guy?  Who should she trust?  And what has she stumbled into?

Now, if you are going into this movie looking for a serious action adventure, turn around, walk out, and get your money back before the show even starts.  This is pure fun action.  Part of that is just because the movie is a comedy.  Some of the lines are pretty funny, and how June reacts to situations makes much of the movie work as well.

But even the action doesn't take itself too seriously.  Don't get me wrong, I got that adrenalin rush at those scenes.  But how they were getting out of those situations was pretty unbelievable.  Frankly, I felt like the film was winking at us.  Instead of saying, "Look at this cool stuff that is really happening," it said, "Look at us having fun.  Doesn't this look cool even if we both know it could never happen."  As I say, I enjoyed the scenes, but I never took them that seriously.

Having said that, the spy plot part of things does pretty much hold together.  I can't really think of any major plot holes.  It progressed from one point to the next very logically, taking me along for the ride.

And the cast was perfect.  It pretty much falls to Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz to hold things together, and they do very well at it.  Cameron Diaz especially is perfect as the ordinary woman caught up in a world she is not used to at all.  Frankly, I could identify with her reactions to things most of the time.

I know that they put the best parts of the movie in the previews, and unfortunately that once again held mostly true here.  There were some pretty funny scenes late in the film I hadn't seen in the ads.  However, the movie wasn't quite the action movie or the comedy I expected.  Heck, even the romance could have been developed more.  What was here definitely worked.  It could have just used more of it.  My roommate was also expecting it to be funnier, although we both agreed that the comedy scenes were pretty funny.

Knight and Day doesn't take itself too seriously.  As long as you sit down with the same expectations, you'll have a great time.