Knight and Day

Undemanding entertainment that relies on Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Cruise has played a decent number of similar invulnerable and indestructible agents, and here he can take advantage of his acting routine and audience expectations. Similarly, Cameron Diaz has played countless similar naive characters in her career. My problem with these types of films is that they are desperately predictable and have a terribly formulaic and simple script. In the airplane scene, Cruise takes down ten opponents without breaking a sweat, but the audience knows very well that if the plane were fully occupied and he faced 150 enemy agents, the outcome would inevitably be the same. A few decent lines and two or three interesting scenes where the story momentarily deviates from the template, like the scene where our hero shoots his enemy in the leg, can't save it. Knight and Day is exactly the kind of film where a fraction of a second after a new character appears, you can identify them as the main villain, even though this "surprise" is saved for the end by the screenwriter. Overall impression: 40%. (01/03/2011)

Knight and Day could have been a hit in the 1990s, but today this movie feels like something of which Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a fresh remake (and not just because the main couple has sex in it). James Mangold manages the dynamics and action well and knows how to work with actors, but he is too old-fashioned for this genre. (07/14/2010)

A perfect echo of the 1990s and the definition of a "summer film." The plot is from the ranks of primitive, overdone action scenes and most importantly a functioning central duo. Cruise plays himself, so he’s entertaining in the right way in the light-hearted atmosphere, and Diaz proves that playing a naive whiny blonde is not all that easy. It's too bad that it’s so predictable, or the feeling you get that the film won't surprise you with anything. This is John Powell's best music since The Bourne Ultimatum. 3 ½. (09/22/2010)

Even on a second viewing, this movie still felt like terrible crap, starring my least favorite actress in the lead role and, I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of Tom Cruise either. Yet, I stuck with my original rating. Why? Well, despite the script being pretty dreadful, the whole silliness of it was oddly entertaining. I switched off all unnecessary brain functions (and trust me, there were many) and just let myself enjoy the simple yet fast-paced plot. Whether I actually liked it or not, one thing's for sure — I wasn't bored. / Lesson learned: When someone tells you you're safe, start running away screaming. 3*- (06/06/2022)

Wonderful nonsense. As if you would get onto a plane and fly back to the nineties where a car blows up when you shoot it in the gas tank, tough guys are quick with snappy lines and scantily clad blondes wink at you with dry Martinis in their hands. Tom Cruise doesn’t age, looks the same and is doing the same crazy things as he was twenty years ago. Mangold handles the directing pretty well (it has that pleasant old-school feeling that it should), but the too obviously digital effects spoil the overall effect. Sometimes I think that it’s a shame that Greengrass didn’t get his hands on this. And John Powell is a guarantee of good music. A pleasant time-out. (10/18/2010)