Knight and Day

If Knight and Day were a color, it would be beige. The bland color allocated to ceilings. I got a good look at mine, when, in a fit of boredom, while watching this snoozer, my head slumped onto the back of the couch.

Knight and Day is the ugly offspring of a rom-com and the Bourne Identity, with an unfortunate preponderance of the former. June (Cameron Diaz) is an the ordinary gal whose life collides with Roy (Tom Cruise). Literally collides, twice, because the accidentally-crashing-into-someone-at-the-airport gag never gets old, right?

Roy is a rogue CIA agent who has been wrongfully accused of something. Or has he? Misunderstandings, un-witty romantic banter, and action hi-jinks ensue.

If it’s action you like (and I do), Knight and Day delivers. And the plot really isn’t too bad either. The problem is its stars, who have less chemistry than sand in water. You know how you can tell when two actors really hate other (The Matrix Revolutions, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss)? In this case, Cruise and Diaz can’t even muster the energy to dislike each other.

June is the quintessential rom-com heroine: sort of ditzy, clumsy, and impulsive. Characteristics which, I guess, are suppose to endear her to a female audience. (Me, I really rather see a woman in control of the situation, but I’m a scary femi-nazi feminist.) Of course, Roy finds those characteristics utterly adorable. In June’s defense, toward the end of the movie, she does start to grow a real personality. What I liked in particular is that when she kills someone–in self defense–she doesn’t go all mopey-schmopey and guilt-ridden.

Cruise, admittedly not my favorite actor, can sometimes be tolerable (e.g., Minority Report). But here, he resorts to his usual shit-eating grin and ADD acting style. Really, Tom? Do you have to go there? It was cute in Top Gun. But that horse, it’s dead. Downright skeletal. Time to stop beating it and grow up.

Yeah. I get it. Cruise’s performance was in part a kind of parody of himself. But he’s also supposed to be the romantic lead. And crazy really isn’t the sort of trait an intelligent woman should look for in a mate. It doesn’t reflect well on the heroine to have her falling for the first glassy-eyed lunatic who drugs her and drags her across the world.

Not a film for those who like romance with brain. I give it a Meh-Minus.