Tuesday 10 August 2010

REVIEW: Knight And Day


First things first. Knight And Day? This movie cost what, 120 million dollars, but that particular meeting couldn't run more then 5 minutes? I'm all for sociopathic bean counting but now whenever anyone mentions your movie it's with hatred, since you made such a putrid pun pass their lips. What does it even mean anyway? I get the Knight part, but having now seen this movie, I can tell you that the day stands for absolutely nothing. There is no double entendre here, its just a lame pun for the sake of a lame pun. What the fuck. Why do you do these things to me, I go and see your movies no matter how shit they are, and all I ask in return is that you not name your movies with immensely stupid one-note puns. Who feels success in this? Motherfuckers.

Anyway, I guess I should actually review the thing now, but for the record I am still very angry about this. Knight and Day is to anyone who saw the trailer, exactly what you thought it would be. A stupid, paper thin blockbuster trading on star names, with nothing substantial in the way of plot, acting or even action for that matter. Despite being an original script, its one of the least original films to come out this summer and everything in it just feels too old. Most notably Cruise and Diaz, who are both playing roles probably meant for actors ten years younger then them. Even with what we know about Cruise, seeing him in yet another variation on the best at what he does cool kid badass, feels wrong somehow. I don't think he should be doing this anymore, because if Tom Cruise was a middle-aged man in a mid-life crisis, then Knight And Day would be his Aston Martin, a desperate attempt to stay hip and relevant amidst competition that is younger and does it better. I'm not saying I want Cruise to go away, or even that he can't be an action star, but he can't be Tom Cruise circa 1996 anymore. If he wants to survive he can't keep telling us he's the coolest kid in the room.

Cameron Diaz fares a bit better, and she is a capable light comedian, giving this movie whatever charm it has, Peter Sarsgaard gets himself paid, and Paul Dano shows up for a bit as a crazy kid scientist. But maybe if it played up the comedy a bit more then the daftness of it all wouldn't matter so much, and it could just be a ride of a movie, which would perfectly fine. But its level of clunkiness is not offset by how enjoyable it is, I'd say by quite a long way too. Also, isn't this secretly the same movie as Killers only with a bigger budget? Story feels pretty similar. Whatever. Not the worst blockbuster in the world if your standards are forgiving, but certainly not a high point for anybody.

Rating: 5/10

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