Knight and Day: Shockingly Solid

Whenever I go to the movies, I like to completely immerse myself in the film. I don't continuously check my phone for text messages from that boy I like. I don't take notes. I don't talk to the people next to me, especially if they're strangers. Now, if a movie sucks (see review of The Back-up Plan), all bets are off because realistically, I have the attention span of a five-year old. Most often, I prefer movies that are 88 minutes, and if they made movies that were 70 minutes, I would be there in a heartbeat. Basically, what I'm driving at is that if a movie can keep my attention for almost two hours, there must be something good there. That's the case with Knight and Day. James Mangold's romantic action thriller keeps you riveted through its entire run with beautiful scenery, funny dialogue, and cool action sequences.

Knight and Day follows June Havens (Cameron Diaz) who, while flying home from Wichita, meets Roy Miller (Tom Cruise). Unbeknownst to her, Roy is a spy assigned to protect the Zephyr, an everlasting battery, and its creator, Simon (Paul Dano). When his partner planned to steal the Zephyr and kill Simon, Cruise acted quickly, hiding Simon and the Zephyr. The government thinks Roy has gone rogue and tries to kill him and anyone who knows anything, which includes June. Thus, the two are off on an adventure to save Simon, themselves, and of course, the world.

Even though it seems like your typical action thriller, Patrick O'Neill's script was actually very well-written; hilarious and perfectly quippy for a romantic action movie. The one-liners left me laughing out loud and though predictable at times, the writing made me find myself liking two actors that I would normally detest.

Tom Cruise's character much resembles the man he is in real life. You want to hate him. In fact, you almost want the bad guys to shoot him and take him down a peg. But at the end of the day, you find yourself rooting for him and his stupid arrogant smile.

Cameron Diaz' June Havens for once actually resembled how a normal person might act when suddenly thrust into the world of spies, intrigue and big ass guns. However, as much as I hate to say it, Diaz might be getting a little old to play the young, single female heroine.

The directing, on the other hand, left a little to be desired. There was nothing really wrong with it, but nothing really fantastic about it either. The action sequences were cool, but nothing we haven't seen before. One piece of action worth mentioning is a device in which Roy Miller drugs June and all we see are groggy moments in which she briefly opens her eyes every couple hours and sees Roy either being tortured, flying a helicopter or some other ridiculously unbelievable spy activity. The device was actually quite funny, however, was completely and utterly ripped off of an episode of "My Name Is Earl" that guest starred Danny Glover. Yes, I might be an even bigger television nerd than movie nerd, but believe that everyone should get proper credit. Now there's no way of knowing what was shot first, and they may actually have been around the same time, but it's an awfully big coincidence.

Still, the movie exceeded my expectations, not just for itself, but for what has become the entire romantic comedy/action thriller hybrid (see Noelle's review of Killers). It actually brought the words "action" and "comedy" back into action comedies and is definitely a fun unexpected ride.

Don't think I'm telling you to drop everything you're doing and run to the nearest theater to see Knight and Day, but if you find yourself with a free evening in the next few weeks and you've already seen Toy Story 3, head on over to the movies and take part in some good, clean, action movie fun.