The following review originally ran on Starpulse.com in 2010.
Since Tom Cruise totally lost his mind a couple years ago, becoming a wacky character in his personal life, I’ve been wondering when he was finally going to make use of that energy in movies. We caught a brief glimpse of it in the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder, where Cruise played the foul-mouthed film producer Les Grossman, however it was only a bit part. In the action packed Knight and Day starring Cruise and Cameron Diaz, Cruise finally makes crazy work for him in the role of rogue spy Roy Miller.
Roy Miller is a suave agent who can fight or shoot his way out of just about any situation without much fuss. Miller can take down a whole room full of bad guys and be relaxed enough to laugh about it. This man is emotionally disconnected from killing, solely focusing on accomplishing his mission. Cruise plays him with enough cool calm, and such twisted sense of humor that you can’t help but like even if you think he’s nuts.
Knight and Day opens with Miller on the run from the authorities, who believe that he has gone rogue. After shooting his way out of a facility in Kansas, Miller escaped with inventor Simon Feck (Paul Dano) and his brilliant invention, which can best be described as a super battery. Seeing the enormous power that this battery holds, another agent, Fitzgerald (Peter Sarsgaard), tried to steal the invention so that he could sell it to the highest bidder. It’s Fitzgerald that has gone back to the government accusing Miller of being the traitor.
At the airport in Kansas, Roy spots June (Cameron Diaz), a tomboyish blonde on her way back to Boston. He attempts to use June to hide his stolen invention, though his plans are thwarted when they end up on the same flight.
From that point on even after June returns to Boston, she is linked to Roy, and the people trying to kill him. She becomes a target of government investigation, going on the run with him. June understands that being with Roy is her only hope of survival.
I keep hoping that Hollywood will write a female character in an action movie that does not suck, but they just keep letting me down. Cameron Diaz is supposed to be a mechanic who restores classic cars, yet somehow she seems to fulfill every annoying female stereotype. She’s a whiny, annoying, wimp that is not able to keep her cool in dangerous situations for most of the movie. Her worst crime though is her miserable attempt at a Boston accent, since you can barely even tell it’s there in most scenes.
Adding to the annoyance of Cameron Diaz and the film’s terrible dialogue is some really poor CG. Cars roll bounce around like they are made of rubber, and blow up like rags soaked in lighter fluid. It’s not all bad though; there are actually some decent action sequences. There are great scenes of Tom Cruise fighting multiple attackers onboard a plane and an exciting motorcycle chase in Spain. Aside from Cruise’s kooky antics and a few solid moments of action, there’s not much else worth seeing in this movie.