An endlessly cute, incoherent and ridiculous espionage action-comedy, Knight and Day stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz as Roy Miller and June Havens, a pair of cartoony humans hopping from plane crash to car chase to helicopter to train to motorcycle chase to bull stampede. Cruise plays a secret agent with whom Diaz becomes entangled because, well... actually it doesn't really matter why anyone does anything in this film.
Cruise doesn't pack houses like he used to and Diaz won't get recognition until she wiggles her ass in the next Charlie's Angels movie. Both stars have become "themselves" so much so that they're all we see, not the characters they portray. The combo of beauty and pearly whites wears thin. Cruise has lost the talent of yesteryear when he worked alongside Newman, Hoffman and Nicholson. After producing gazillion-dollar action flicks, ranting Scientology and couch dancing on Oprah his credibility has taken a nosedive. Diaz had moments of real talent, but then fell into idiotic ditzy giggly roles. We get what's left of their shtick in this tedious piece of fluff that is neither amusing nor entertaining.
Director James Mangold (Cop Land, Walk the Line) demonstrates no flair for rapid action choreography. Instead, the stars blatantly over enunciate lines from a lame script by first-timer Patrick O'Neill in front of a green screen onto which mundane computer-generated action emanates.
Cruise plays it straight, which almost works.Diaz's turn as an innocent stuck in the middle of spy games is beyond irritating as she "adorably" talks to herself, attempting to let you know how she feels as she painstakingly explains the plot. With each grinning quip delivered from Cruise or pseudo wide-eyed bewilderment from Diaz, the brainless romantic comedy banter remains stale and their silly star power makes it all the less believable.
Knight and Day has a running theme in which Miller drugs June unconscious to save her from dangerous situations. They should've handed out some of that stuff along with the tickets so I wouldn't have endured this god-awful two-hour torture session.
Knight and Day
★✩✩✩✩
Starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Paul Dano
PG-13
