KNIGHT AND DAY (D+)
This is a movie that I did not anticipate to be one of the better movies of the year, or even one that I would really enjoy. The previews alone left me skeptical. The aging stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz coupled with a ridiculous looking story gave me little reason to believe this movie could be high quality. Before walking in I was all for giving this movie a chance. It had received luke warm reviews meaning I could go either way from enjoying to hating Knight and Day. Walking out, it is laughable what this movie tried to pull on audiences. This movie, was not good.
Knight and Day begins at the airport as Cruise and Diaz have two chance meetings en route to their flights. It turns out they are on the same flight, and aboard the audience discovers it is filled with dangerous people trying to take Mr. Scientology down. He foils their attempts to kill him by taking them out with his "ninja" skills. With Diaz now being a witness to what happened, Cruise is decides he needs to protect her too. The movie from there on is a "night and day" of scenes going in this direction and that, never going out of the way to give the audience a strong grasp of what is going on.
The details to why bad men are chasing Cruise is anti-climatically explained with a drawling and boring monologue from Mr. Scientology himself. This is known as uncreative storytelling when writers tell us what to know instead of showing us. With all the names thrown around in the speech it is difficult to be fully on pace until the characters names are cemented in your head, which at that point they are not. Much of the storytelling in this movie is sub-par just like this, and that is why this movie bombed so much in my book. The characters get some elaboration as the movie progresses, but at that point the audience is dulled by the constant mindless action.
The second huge flaw in this movie is the over the top, mindless, non-stop action. There were actually points during the action sequences when my friend Dan and I were laughing almost hysterically at the ridiculous-ness taking place on screen. Tom Cruise surfs on a speeding car roof while chasing down Cameron Diaz who is steering a separate speeding car over 100 miles per hour from the back seat. Really?! Really. This movie is set in reality by the way. The writers never say, "Hey, suspend your disbelief. This is a movie, and we are about to bring some unrealistic to the table."
Another example is Cruise and Diaz being surrounded by an elite team of guerrilla soldiers who strangely cannot land a bullet in Diaz as she runs around like a chicken minus a head or Cruise as he pops out from cover and mows down several soldiers in higher fortified positions. My favorite piece of stupidity has to be the motorcycle chase late in the film. Just when you didn't think this movie could get anymore ridiculous, the two have to avoid the running of the bulls and their pursuers through the city streets (see the first picture). Seriously?! Seriously. That really happens in this movie. The timing is so perfectly manufactured that they actually have to evade a pack of bulls and the people running in this ridiculous event.
Overall, Knight and Day was the worst movie I have seen this year. While I have not seen the similar but much worse rated Killers, starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl, I am sure this movie rivals Killers in terrible-ness. The action sequences in Knight and Day are so over the top and constant that I could never set myself into a state of enjoyment. My shaking head wouldn't stop as the overbearing, never ceasing action sequences kept piling up.
Instead of spending time trying to make sense of the story, the writers spent their time concocting wasteful unrealistic action sequences that are close to entertaining, but far from captivating. I actually ran into people who enjoyed this movie, but that is because they like Tom Cruise (and they are morons). If you do disregard my warning and check out Knight and Day, turn off your brain; that is the only way to make sense of it all.
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