MOVIE REVIEW: KNIGHT AND DAY

KNIGHT AND DAY (English/PG13)

Genre: Action/Comedy

Release Date: 24 June 2010

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Running Time: 112 minutes

Director: James Mangold

Producers: Cathy Konrad, Todd garner, Steve Pink

Writers: Patrick O'Neill

Casts: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie Grace, Viola Davis

Plot: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz star in the action-comedy "Knight & Day". During their glamorous and sometimes deadly adventure, nothing and no one - even the now fugitive couple - are what they seem. Amid shifting alliances and unexpected betrayals, they race across the globe, with their survival ultimately hinging on the battle of truth versus trust.

THE VERDICT

With an amazing high octane trailer, putting Tom Cruise and Dameron Diaz as an oddly pair that goes around shoots all the cars to fling around, the final product of Knight and Day did not make a proper justice to all those expectation we hoped for to get a proper summer action flick. No, Knight and Day ends up been a generic subpar for all those and I hate to say this but it gets my vote low.

‘Knight and Day’ follows the adventure of Roy Miller who is a smooth-talking and skillful agent and June Havens, a woman whom has many interests on grease-monkey automobiles. One day June bumped into Roy at the airport on the way home from Wichita. After some problems with her flight, she was placed into the same flight with Miller. Miller kills everyone in the plane while June is in the restroom and at this point we are well aware that Miller is a fugitive from some central intelligence and he is an agent that has turned his back on them. After the incidents on the plane, Roy sends June home after drugging her. The next day, June wakes up at home. Having a rough day and though that her life has back to normal, she is wrong. Now, Roy and June need to work together onwards!

The movie was promised to be a fun one as we are shown as such in the trailer, but the movie did not light up to the expectation. There are several problems around this movie. First, the story itself is trying so desperately to imitate some Mission: Impossible movie. Why? There are plenty of ridiculous actions, plenty of suave and coolness around Cruise’s character and there is always an opposite female lead character which I thought is a bit troublesome to Cruise’s. Evidently, we have lots of car flying around with Miller aims his shot on the gas tank and June remains cuckoo and dizzying throughout the film.

Secondly, there is something wrong about the chemistry between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. It is a fact that they were once united for a movie called Vanilla Sky and that was nine years ago. Nine years later that did not really worked up that well. The whole movie is trying to promote and emphasize on their chemistry onscreen rather than pushing on a bigger plot. I felt their chemistry akin to siblings, not lovers. There wasn’t much convincing and romantically acts been thrown in. Plus, Cameron Diaz provided a very annoying acting and she’s one-dimensional. It is not for instance I thought we should have someone else on that role. Thirdly, the story written by Patrick O’Neill seems high in volume but low in impact. The actions are loud but meddling.

Even with that downside, there are a few to save this movie up. Even as ridiculous the action stunts are, it did not become too much over the top. Well, isn’t that represents the usual and normal form of Tom Cruise? Secondly, director James Mangold did not waste too much time in probing too much on the character, instead presents to us his detailed plan on bringing in action. Lucky for him, this could be one of the most obnoxious and boring stuff I could have watched!

THE CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, Knight and Day fell short of its own expectation. Not even Muse’s Uprising song can rocked the movie all through. It suffers a great deal trying to be the next Mission: Impossible. The highlight of the lackluster in chemistry between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz makes it bad. It can be fun but ridiculous at the same time and luckily we do not have too much of talking all the time, or else, everyone is getting bored out of hand. But the question is, does this movie serve its justification for a deserved good summer action flick. No, it does not but it is BARELY PASSABLE!!

THE RATING

Story - 2.5 stars

Casts - 3.5 stars

Cinematography - 3.0 stars

Effects - 3.0 stars

OVERALL - 3.0 stars

GREEN-TEA-O-METER: 11.8