Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz have chemistry in Knight and Day.
Granted, it’s not the kind that like, makes you want to see them get it on – sex is the furthest thing from their minds for a good chunk of the throwback-ish action-com, which comes from director James Mangold (Walk the Line).
Surviving, on the hand, is at the top of the list…but more on that in a moment.
Cruise and Diaz’s chemistry, rather, is more of the sort that makes you believe the two get along famously off screen and like they’re having a romp on. It definitely makes you buy him as a beyond-able spy (shocker!) and her as a gal who, when presented with an impossible situation, can rise above it with a smile on her face.
Indeed, the old Vanilla Sky co-stars look and work together quite nicely in the movie. Diaz, especially, is delightful as June Havens, a somewhat unremarkable (she’s never been anywhere, keeps her nose clean) sunny restorer of classic cars who unwittingly gets enmeshed in a convoluted plot involving an invention Roy Miller, Cruise’s slightly off-kilter secret agent, has pledged to protect.
That is, of course, when the actress isn’t shrieking (or adding clumsy yelps in post that barely match the action on screen) during most of the movie’s many action pieces. Those, btw, include a pretty-cool mid-flight airplane fight, followed by a crash landing, and am ambush on a mini-island Roy calls his off-the-grid hideout.
The setup is quite simple: On her way from Wichita (which originally gave the movie its working title) to Boston for her little sister’s wedding, June accidentally bumps into Roy – or did she? – and she becomes a piece of a globetrotting puzzle that takes her on a ride of a lifetime.
Roy tells June she can trust him, but then those he claims have set him up, including a slightly underused Peter Sarsgaard, have her convinced she maybe can’t or shouldn’t.
What I liked most about Knight and Day was the plain ol’ fact that it was entertaining. It actually was fun, and those action pieces I mentioned earlier were outlandishly so. Honestly, only Cruise could get away with them, and he does.
To see him rescue the damsel he’s put in distress is to see him turn on the charm. And that’s a good thing ’cause after a bit of a rough patch there, where we all kinda forgot we were on the side of the guy with the million-dollar smile, was it’s hella great to see he’s still got It.
Then again, what I didn’t love about Knight and Day was the manic manner with which it jumped from breathless location to breathless location. From the Wichita airport to the streets of Boston to a Brooklyn warehouse to a train crossing Austria to Spain, which lends its famous running of the bulls for the story-capping climax, Mangold manages to make it as if they’ve been there for just a little bit and overstay his characters’ welcome at each locale.
Granted, it’s not the kind that like, makes you want to see them get it on – sex is the furthest thing from their minds for a good chunk of the throwback-ish action-com, which comes from director James Mangold (Walk the Line).Surviving, on the hand, is at the top of the list…but more on that in a moment.
Cruise and Diaz’s chemistry, rather, is more of the sort that makes you believe the two get along famously off screen and like they’re having a romp on. It definitely makes you buy him as a beyond-able spy (shocker!) and her as a gal who, when presented with an impossible situation, can rise above it with a smile on her face.
Indeed, the old Vanilla Sky co-stars look and work together quite nicely in the movie. Diaz, especially, is delightful as June Havens, a somewhat unremarkable (she’s never been anywhere, keeps her nose clean) sunny restorer of classic cars who unwittingly gets enmeshed in a convoluted plot involving an invention Roy Miller, Cruise’s slightly off-kilter secret agent, has pledged to protect.
That is, of course, when the actress isn’t shrieking (or adding clumsy yelps in post that barely match the action on screen) during most of the movie’s many action pieces. Those, btw, include a pretty-cool mid-flight airplane fight, followed by a crash landing, and am ambush on a mini-island Roy calls his off-the-grid hideout.
The setup is quite simple: On her way from Wichita (which originally gave the movie its working title) to Boston for her little sister’s wedding, June accidentally bumps into Roy – or did she? – and she becomes a piece of a globetrotting puzzle that takes her on a ride of a lifetime.
Roy tells June she can trust him, but then those he claims have set him up, including a slightly underused Peter Sarsgaard, have her convinced she maybe can’t or shouldn’t.
What I liked most about Knight and Day was the plain ol’ fact that it was entertaining. It actually was fun, and those action pieces I mentioned earlier were outlandishly so. Honestly, only Cruise could get away with them, and he does.
To see him rescue the damsel he’s put in distress is to see him turn on the charm. And that’s a good thing ’cause after a bit of a rough patch there, where we all kinda forgot we were on the side of the guy with the million-dollar smile, was it’s hella great to see he’s still got It.
Then again, what I didn’t love about Knight and Day was the manic manner with which it jumped from breathless location to breathless location. From the Wichita airport to the streets of Boston to a Brooklyn warehouse to a train crossing Austria to Spain, which lends its famous running of the bulls for the story-capping climax, Mangold manages to make it as if they’ve been there for just a little bit and overstay his characters’ welcome at each locale.
It was a bit confusing, I have to say, but fun to watch nevertheless, particularly because after everything that happens I felt like Roy and June earned their right to finally kiss, and he earned her...and she earned a new world. The movie, though, could have been a bit tighter. Like both its stars’ abs.
My Rating ***
Photo: 20th Century Fox.
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