Knight and Day: (June 23, 2010): PG-13
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Opening Weekend Box-Office: #3 with $20,139,985
Domestic Box-Office Gross to-date: $75,289,389
Gross Revenue: $214,620,284
Budget: $117,000,000
Director: James Mangold
Full Review
During my weekend preview post, I mentioned that I had initially not planned to see Knight and Day, but the trailer attached to the film was enough to pique my interest. With classics such as Jerry Macguire, Top Gun, A Few Good Men, Rain Man, and the Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise was once one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood, but given some of the marketing tactics used, it was clear that 20th Century Fox knew that such an assurance was now long gone. Sneak previews and viral videos simply could not generate an acceptable amount of interest for Knight and Day…Fox even released an extended scene on iTunes to improve interest, but I still think that the large level of controversy surrounding Cruise’s well-publicized personal life remained too vibrant in the mind of the average moviegoer. One of the more clever tactics I noticed involved June’s MTV Movie Awards, where Cruise and Diaz not only appeared together, but Cruise’s infamous character Les Grossman from 2008’s Tropic Thunder (the foul-mouthed executive who was easily the funniest character in that movie) made numerous appearances. This was a rather blatant reminder that Tom Cruise is a talented and entertaining actor, and maybe his newest film would be worth making a trip to the theater.
Tragically, Knight and Day was the wrong project to try and return Tom Cruise to superstar status. Cruise plays Roy Miller, a rogue spy who bumps in to civilian June Havens (Cameron Diaz) on a plane flight; when the people chasing Miller assume that June is working with him, he is forced to protect her as they both must now evade relentless pursuers. It turns out that Miller had been framed by his former partner…Miller was shadowing a scientist who developed a perpetual energy battery, and Miller’s partner decided to steal this technology and sell it to the highest bidder; when Miller tried to intervene, he was branded as the traitor.
Plot sound a little confusing and not that logical? If so, your instincts are dead-on. Knight and Day’s narrative is so jumpy that the audience has a hard time keeping track of what exactly is going on for a majority of the film. Though some amount of confusion can be expected for a spy movie, there still has to be some flow and logic present, and both are notably absent in this film. Also, with a summer action film, impressive action sequences should be a given, but I was shocked at the mediocre quality of most of the chase and fight sequences, some of which relied on painfully obvious computer-generated imagery. Plain and simple, the combination of Knight and Day’s plot and action sequences resulted in a thoroughly disappointing story launched during a movie season where success demands near-flawless execution.
Surprisingly, the performances of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are the only saving graces for Knight and Day. Regardless of what you think of Tom Cruise’s personal life, few can deny that he is a talented and engaging actor, and throughout this film, he blends humor and action well. He almost seems to be channeling and switching between some of his more famous on-screen personas throughout, and though it could have been annoying to see sports agent Jerry Macguire morph into super-agent Ethan Hunt from scene-to-scene, it was actually pretty entertaining. As the female lead, Cameron Diaz was also surprisingly charming as the somewhat inept damsel-in-distress, not to mention that she and Cruise actually showed some considerable chemistry. On a personal note, I don’t know if it’s because Cameron Diaz has starting wearing her hair long again or put on a little weight so that she’s no longer rail-thin, but I haven’t seen her look this attractive since she first appeared on Hollywood’s radar in 1994’s The Mask with Jim Carrey (yep, hard to believe that was her). It has to be a testament to the talent of these two actors that they were able to deliver enjoyable performances in the midst of the rest of the film.
Though a number of critics acknowledge that Cruise and Diaz’s performances represent some of the strongest aspects of Knight and Day, it looks like the general public still isn’t quite ready to forget Cruise’s personal life. In terms of the weekend box-office, Knight and Day only made $20 million its opening weekend, coming in behind Toy Story 3 and Grown Ups. Though I knew that it wouldn’t overtake Disney-Pixar’s juggernaut, I still expected Knight and Day to perform a little better. Not only was this Tom Cruise’s worst movie opening in 20 years, but with a production budget of $125 million and Twilight: Eclipse coming out this week, you can virtually guarantee that 20th Century Fox is going to be losing some big money. The shame of it is that it is not really Tom Cruise’s fault, he put in a good performance regardless of a bad script, and yet he will no doubt take a majority of the blame. He has delivered some of the best movies in Hollywood’s history, but his personal life interfered with his career, now making him a victim of circumstance, and that’s unfortunate. Hopefully one of his established franchises can help when Mission: Impossible 4 hits in 2011.
All in all, the cast does what they can with the script of Knight and Day, but good performances simply aren’t enough.
Overall recommendation: Low
