David O'ConnellKnight and Day
July 8th 2010 04:17
Dire Straits. Not the crusty old rock band but the state in which action films of the 21st Century find themselves. Die Hard, Predator, Aliens: iconic titles as fading memories. Like polly waffles and creatures from the Jurassic era. Today the budgets of these films have been bloated obscenely, but whatever happened to using flesh-and-blood creations and real-world concepts to bridge those pesky intervals created by silence? And what about dialogue that doesn’t sound like painfully amateurish free-form poetry that a lovestruck 12 year old would be embarrassed to recite to his dog, let alone the world at large? (Ok, I’m referring to Twilight here, not action movies. Couldn’t resist.)
The meaningless plot of Knight and Day goes something like this: a renegade, possibly insane secret agent, Roy Miller (Tom Cruise), ‘accidentally’ bumps into a beautiful - debatable, but this isn’t the time or place - peroxide blond, June Havens (Cameron Diaz), to get the prized ‘Zephyr’ through the security at an airport. What is the hell is this ‘Zephyr’ anyway? And am I even spelling it correctly? Well, it’s a very, very special but volatile battery designed by a geek genius that never loses its power, thus rendering it the most sought after energy source in the world.
Whilst June is in the toilet talking herself into a proposition that would have Ralph Fiennes licking his lips, Roy clinically dispatches the few other passengers aboard who happen to be assassins, naturally. The pilots too. So surely they’ll crash? No way, Roy can fly planes. So he puts the big bird down in a cornfield. Drugs June, she wakes up, was it all a dream? No, he made breakfast for her. Nice guy that Roy.
Ooh, look out, here come the suspicious agents Roy warned her about before she passed out. Don’t get in their car! Ah crap, she does! Is she doomed? Nah, man, here comes Roy - out of nowhere I tell you! Kills and maims dozens on the freeway, just to snatch her back. Carving out death and destruction: it’s like you or I scratching an itch. Everybody wants the damn ‘Zephyr’. Loopy Roy or the mad-dog agents? Who’s really telling the truth? None or both? Are you even still awake?
You’ll be shocked to know there’s nothing remotely true-to-life about Knight and Day. Ripped from the bowels of a Playstation console, the action zings around the globe at the speed of light. Logic and reason are surrendered very early on, but then who among the target audience came here in search of nit-picking trivialities anyway?
This is a zany, sexy, wind-assisted, by-the-numbers action film. A proudly 21st century production. It fits very neatly indeed into the current trend of kick-starting a gargantuan CGI whirlpool that sucks every brain cell from that creative zone where writers and artists once sat to confer and create. In its place, the void of modern action films has been created, relegating the arthouse realm to the slimmest of margins - funnily enough, the kind of place that director James Mangold began his career, making the downbeat, small-scale and ever-interesting Heavy in 1995.
Cruise and Diaz share a modicum of chemistry at least. Have they gone some way to correcting the unholy replication that was Vanilla Sky? Not at all, but Cruise with his deity-endowed superciliousness and swagger, and Diaz with her finest deer-caught-in-the-headlights grimace of perennial panic, do their best to convince us they aren’t just the star attractions of some theme-park ride. But as is the prerogative of any critic, I utilise my right to fundamentally flawed reasoning. Knight and Day is.....overblown? Certainly. Cartoonish? Affirmative. Mindless? Absolutely. Yet somehow it turns out to be a surprisingly entertaining endeavour. I admit it.
Before I get carried away though and actually grant it a pass mark, I have to point out the disturbing fact that Peter Sarsgaard and recent Oscar nominee Viola Davis have thankless minor roles. Expect them both to sell their souls for a chance at a 'cardboard cutout authority figure relegated to the sidelines with barely 12 solid lines of dialogue' once again in the very near future.
Knight and Day opens in Australia on July 15.
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Comment by Deni
Abstract Magick
Cinema Herald
You know, I was more intrigued with this film when I had though that Tom Cruise's character was a bit of a "nut-case" - I wish they would have explored that angle. In the movie trailer when he did the daring motorcycle jump and landed on the hood of the car & and on the plane, as you mentioned, after he killed everyone, it seemed like he was in desperate need of a need a straight-jacket and I had hoped that that was the angle they were going for.
But then it turned out that he was very sane and then it went back to being just a guy and a girl running from some spies.
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
In their own way, the stunts are entertaining and pulled off with some degree of style but of course they're just as unrealistic as anything in The A-Team (just with less crudity). I imagine Salt and any other blockbusters still to come will follow suit too.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Nice one Dave!
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
haha!! I love a dose of vitirole in the morning!
In other words formulaic action minus intellect?
There is always room for that kind of fare in every critic's diet, but, just once, I'd like to see Cruise cop it...or maybe realize he was the dumb arse and wrong... and small...very very small...but big shoes....
cheers
fog
Comment by Michaelie
Flick Wit
I saw the trailer and just thought.... No. Though like Deni I did have a moment where I thought it may have been worth a look-see if Tom Cruise's character was actually a crazy person.
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Still an entertaining read.
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Catherine Stebbins
Thoughts from a Cinephile
Thoughts from a TV Watcher
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic