Knight and Day

Knight and Day
Rated: PG-13
Grade: C

Tom Cruise – I do, and always will, think that Tom Cruise is nuts… and 5’2. I know he’s 5’7ish but for some reason I just picture him as a lot smaller. As for the nuts thing, I don’t know the guy, but I did see clips of that Oprah with him and the couch. I dislike the guy. I wouldn’t want to talk to him in real life.

So when I say that Tom Cruise makes the movie, you have to understand. It's a disappointment. Roy Miller as a character is fun to watch, engaging to see, and a thrill to experience. Tom Cruise played it with the same fun he brought to Tropic Thunder and the dancing movie producer. That fun, that energy could make someone famous and has brought him back from the PR disaster that is Scientology. (Please don’t sue me)

Cameron Diaz was dull and boring except for one scene when she is walking from the airplane bathroom, having bolstered her ego, ignoring the dead bodies around her to plant a kiss on the stranger that is Tom Cruise. That scene was an A. The rest of her performance whether it was the writers or her failed miserably. As an audience member you cant connect with her at all. You cant relate with her decisions. She changes constantly from being in panic to being OK, with for no rhyme or reason (except to transition the movie). You just kind of give her that look you give when you feel sorry for someone. It’s a long movie to be giving that look.

So those are the only two characters in the movie that matter.

Villain in the movie was dumb. Roy Miller is a CIA super agent. His partner, his equal, is Fitzerald. Thing is… he isn’t equal at all. He pouts hard and runs around aimlessly. He isn’t shooting people and when he finally does have a gun his hand shakes cause he is so nervous. This is the villain? Its not that Peter Sarsgaard did a bad job, its that the writers made him a pansy. If he is supposed to be the equal, make him the equal. Show him hopping on cars, walking oblivious to bullets buzzing, and have the "turn your head in slow-mo while something blows up in the background"… or if you don’t want to show it, at least imply he’s capable of it.

Oh and Paul Dano did a decent job as a nerd… but what’s up with the facial hair? It was creepy. Actually previous decent job comment redacted. He was creepy.

One thing I can't decide if I like or didn't like was the transitions. They literally drug June or Roy and then close their eyes (the screen itself changes to be from their perspective), new three second scene... rinse and repeat till you are where you want to end up. Its a weird transition and just kind of felt lazy.

Graphics were pretty crappy too. There is a scene where they are running with the bulls. Well they are riding a motorcycle with the bulls, and it looks horrible.

The gimmick of the movie is you don’t know who the bad guy is, who is the good guy, who is betraying America, what’s wrong with the battery, but really… you know the whole time. Cause its Freaking Tom Cruise, so you know he wouldn’t sign up on a movie where he turns out to be the bad guy. He’s dancing in a fat suit cool, not Christian Bail wants to kill everyone in Terminator Salvation cool.

So the movie was rewritten a hundred times and in pre-production for 5 years, and it shows.

The movie is action filled and boring.

The movie has great one-liners and even gets a laugh, but isn’t funny.

It could have been dramatic but I didn’t care about anyone.

So as sad as it makes me to say, because of Tom Cruise the movie gets 2 stars out of 4 as oppose to a turkey.