Knight and Day Reviews

If you want to know what might happen if Tom Cruise starred in an animated movie- but without the animation- Knight and Day should be quite a treat. Knight and Day, like many animated films, dispenses with reality and provides silly circumstances and wacky characters. And yet, at the same time, Knight and Day is a surprisingly solid action movie. There are fun chase scenes, and legitimately cool fight sequences- all while retaining the film's zany, crazy tone. By all accounts, Knight and Day should not work. The blend gritty action scenes and cartoon-like humor is jarring, to the say the least. But the action is effective enough, and the comedy is funny enough, and it all lends itself to a very enjoyable popcorn flick- albeit, a nutty one.

June Havens' life turns upside down when she meets a guy by the name of Roy Millers that turns out to be a secret agent of sorts. He's eccentric- maybe crazy- but there are "bad men" everywhere, and if she wants to get out of this alive, June has no choice but to trust Roy- even when things a bit out of hand.

Knight and Day, in many respects, could be considered a terrible movie. It's silly, it's over-the-top, it's completely improbable, and at times, Knight and Day seems to adapt a sort of "anything goes" kind of attitude. But therein lies the film's charm. It revels in its silliness. It relishes its over-the-top antics. It basks in its improbability.

This is the kind of film that will drive people crazy. Knight and Day could cause a passionately negative response from the wrong audience. You think Pirates of the Caribbean is silly? That franchise will feel like To Kill A Mockingbird compared to this. Knight and Day is one of the most unexpectedly ridiculous films I've ever seen. But it's exactly that exaggerated absurdity that causes Knight and Day to move beyond other generic thrillers of the same cloth.

Knight and Day is a wacky little experiment, but it does have problems that are a bit more universal. For example, the main character, June Havens, is all over the board. She has no single personality- it seems to change from scene to scene. The least she could've done is let one of the other characters have one of spare personalities, as the majority of the character ensemble have little to no memorable character traits. There are exceptions of course (namely Roy Miller and Simon Feck), but as a whole, the characters are bland.

Also, at a nearly two hour run time, Knight and Day does feel a wee bit long. The film is mostly engaging from start to finish, but it does run of steam a bit at the 70 minute mark.

Tom Cruise nails it as Roy Miller, the suave secret agent with a screw loose. Cameron Diaz does her best with her personality-confused character, June. Though one does get the feeling that this role might have been better suited towards someone like Kristen Wiig. Still, Diaz' work here is solid. Also notable is Paul Dano as Simon Feck.

I'm not sure whether to praise John Powell's score for its inspired instrumentation, or state my confusion with it. Knight and Day makes heavy use of the accordion in this score, which is, frankly speaking, surprising. In its own weird way, the score does work, but the "anything goes" feel of the film is definitely evident in the music.

Knight and Day is as silly as action films get. It's almost cartoonish-ly over-the-top, and this will almost certainly turn off some audiences. But for those who will excuse this, Knight and Day is a remarkably entertaining popcorn movie. It's a little long, and the ending is definitely too cutesy, but for a reasonably low-profile action movie, Knight and Day is surprisingly fun.

There was a time when Tom Cruise was the biggest movie star and it was enough to attach his name to a flick to make it a blockbuster. Even if this time is long gone, it seems that Tom Cruise doesn't want to let it go. Indeed, a movie like this would have been pretty big 15 years ago, but nowadays, only huge franchises are really successful and only a handful actors are able to attract the audience nowadays and Cruise is unfortunately not one of them anymore. Anyway, this flick is basically a throwback to those good old spy romantic comedies, usually starring Cary Grant and I must say that Tom Cruise was actually pretty good. Unfortunately, the plot was just too fluffy and lightweight for me. Basically, none of the characters was taking seriously what was going on, so why should I?  I think it would have been more interesting if Tom Cruise would have been really neurotic and unstable but that's just me. It is rather interesting to note that Tom Cruise dropped out from 'The Tourist', another disappointing high profile feature released in 2010, to make this flick when, in fact, they had a really similar plot (instead of a clueless guy getting involved in some spy conspiracy, you had here a clueless girl). Anyway,  I still think that the whole thing was rather well made and entertaining and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

" Sometimes things happens for a reason "; " 'Someday' is a dangerous word, is the code for 'never'"

Besides being just okay, it has a good charisma of the actors, but with a narrative with more action than brain. Thus it was far away from their potential. If they had invested in the screenplay like invested in special effects, the movie would have been more inexpensive and way better.

You want to know what my first immediate impressions were of Knight And Day were before I saw it? It is something that perhaps everybody thought at first: just another money-grubbing, action-comedy blockbuster that has a rather lame dialogue and annoying characters but with good action and that is Knight And Day in a nutshell. As predicted there was a lot of impressive action scenes that were a lot of fun to watch but even the intense action in the film didn't save the film. Over the years, we have seen films like Knight And Day that tries to charm the viewers by giving us lots of action but this was just so predictable and I was almost certain of what was going to happen after about 30 minutes during the film.


June has a garage in Boston. At an airport heading home, a man bumps into her a few times and tries to keep her off the plane. He's under FBI surveillance; they wonder if he and she are working together, so they let both on a flight full of armed men wanting to arrest the stranger. He's Roy, he shoots his way out of trouble and tells her she's in danger. She's home the next day, miraculously, when agents pick her up; Roy saves her again, and a transcontinental chase ensues with Roy convincing her that he's the good guy, protecting an energy source that a rogue agent wants to sell on the black market. Can she trust Roy, and will trust matter when the bullets start flying?


Admittedly, I find both Cruise and Diaz overrated even though I did like them in Vanilla Sky together but they reunite for a second time. However, this time, the chemistry between both characters was just annoying as hell! Tom Cruise is one of those actors who try to play a kind of hero that we have seen time and time again but he really doesn't catch the audience's attention in this film at all. I mean, it's like one minute he is fighting for June and defending her, then he is fighting against her and then defending her and so forth so became quite annoying and a rather messed-up and chaotic character. Cameron Diaz may have been incredibly hot as June Havens but her performance as June Havens was one of those performances where you find the character incredibly annoying. I mean, Tom Cruise playing a guy called Roy and Cameron Diaz playing a woman called June! They are the oldest fashioned and elderly names anyone could possibly come up with and they really don't suit actors like Cruise and Diaz. Peter Sarsgaard is just another actor playing a cob looking for someone. There was nothing new added to that character kind at all, really. I liked Paul Dano's mild appearance and performance which makes him the best actor in the film.


James Mangold certainly knows how to direct a film brilliantly in the action scenes but elsewhere such as developing the characters and the non-action scenes, he just cannot do it and it just didn't work that out for him and I couldn't see it, really. I think the best action scene throughout the entire film has got to go to the aeroplane scene where they need to land the plane. Now, that was pretty impressive. Apart from that, it was just a director who tried but failed.


Overall, Knight And Day is just another action-comedy that does have its obviously fun moment but has its very flawed and rather crap ones at the same time. It is nothing special but it isn't one of the worst films that I have watched.

"Sometimes things happen for a reason..."

Knight and Day was blessed with all of the constituents to make a successful summer blockbuster, with big action scenes, a plot encouraging global warfare, and two popular, attractive stars with an assured click of chemistry. It's certainly difficult to argue with the package. And for a while, the film capitalises on its potential, but it soon deteriorates into a forgetful, laboured motion picture which is clearly unsure of what it aspires to be. Knight and Day fails to snowball into a rollicking good time; instead, it only adrenalises in small doses, and is ultimately unable to build momentum or take advantage of everything it has to offer.

The story begins at the airport, with June Havens (Diaz) and Roy Miller (Cruise) literally bumping into one another on a couple of occasions. Eventually, they find themselves conversing on the same flight that's bound for Boston. On the plane, Roy reveals himself to be a particularly skilled secret agent accused of going rogue. Reluctantly, Roy takes June with him as he sets out to both defend himself and protect an energy-sustaining battery created by a teenaged genius (Dano). From there, the film hops, skips and bounces all over the world as Roy evades various American agents and an army of assassins led by a European arms dealer (Mollà) who are out to get him.

For roughly its first 45 minutes, Knight and Day lives up to and surpasses expectations. A slick action-comedy-romance hybrid, it's possible to be intrigued and delighted by the snappy dialogue, James Mangold's smooth direction, and the palpable chemistry between Cruise and Diaz. The tone is right, the action is excellent, the pace is brisk, and it's engaging when we do not know where the film is headed. However, after this period, the film falls apart; degenerating into a laboured, tedious hodgepodge of ludicrous ideas, extraneous globetrotting and sloppy storytelling. The screenwriting is unbelievably lazy - on several occasions, Roy and June are in the midst of an action scene before June is drugged or knocked out, and the film cuts to a new location without letting us see how the conflict ends. Action scenes and connective tissue are missing. Furthermore, there are dead spots and the film outstays its welcome - it feels as if the material is being stretched out too much. Eventually the film ends with a whimper, with an underwhelming action sequence followed by a conclusion that's so sugar-coated it could rot your teeth. Watching Knight and Day is the equivalent of devouring a delicious bowl of chocolate ice cream before eating a plain rice-cake.

The films helmed by director James Mangold - Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma, Girl, Interrupted, and Kate & Leopold - display an inclination towards stories about characters in intense relationships or situations. Knight and Day continues this tradition, though in a far less serious manner than Mangold's prior features. To the credit of Mangold, the action was excellently shot and edited. There's no lazy shaky-cam or rapid-fire editing - instead, there are just coherent action set-pieces you can see and be involved in. Also, the film works with crackerjack glee at times; never taking itself too seriously during the cartoonishly over-the-top action sequences, and letting viewers in on the joke. With that said, the digital effects are atrocious - it's as though the effects artists were actively trying to get people to stop watching the movie. For a big-budgeted blockbuster, this is especially disappointing. Additionally, for an action-comedy, Knight and Day does not offer nearly enough comedy. The best lines were all in the trailer.

Tom Cruise is easily film's biggest asset. For the first time in years, Cruise has regained the form that allowed him to become one of the biggest stars of the '80s and '90s. While watching Cruise slip effortlessly into this role and willingly lampoon his Mission: Impossible character, it's easy to forget the actor's irrational off-screen behaviour and ludicrous tabloid-fodder personal life. Knight and Day is vintage Cruise in the best sense of the word, with the smile and a devilish twinkle in his eye that recalls the early days of his career. Between this and 2008's Tropic Thunder, Cruise has wisely utilised humour as a way to ingratiate himself back into people's good graces after his couch-hopping incident. At the other end of the spectrum, however, Cameron Diaz is not so impressive. June mostly stands aside and squeals, though Diaz made the most of what the role is. Meanwhile, supporting players such as Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Paul Dano and Maggie Grace are unfortunately wasted in thankless, underdeveloped roles.

Knight and Day is a motion picture of two parts. The first is a superb, jokey action-comedy which will run your hopes high about what's to come. However, what comes next is a real downer; a rote, half-hearted, familiar-feeling escapade with narrative imbalance and middling energy levels. The action becomes perfunctory, while the romance is sidelined until the end. A superior film is lurking on the fringes of the final product, and it's too bad that there are only a few glimpses of the magic that could have been. Oh, and please note that the title makes no sense. The "Knight" sort of comes into play, but there's no reason for the "Day" attachment. As a whole, the title of Knight and Day is meaningless. Nine writers (eight uncredited) worked on the script, yet they could not paste together something decent or even slap it with a worthwhile title. What a mess.

5.1/10

Besides its unfortunately bad title there is very little not to like about Knight and Day. I took a chance on this movie (despite the unkind treatment received from most high-profile critics) and walked out of the theater knowing I'd just seen a contender for biggest surprise of the year. I competely bought into this movie in the first few minutes, not because I wanted to like it, but because the film oozes with a spirit of unabashed fun to which only the most cynical and crotchety of movie-goers could be immune.

With Knight and Day we once again finally have an action film that celebrates film itself-- celebrates the magical, romantic, outlandish places it can take us-- without feeling overly dramatic, self-important, or, worse, inauthentic. No one is exploiting the latest trend here (comicbooks, 80s tv series/toy-lines, unnecessary remakes). No studio is promoting the next future star. This one is actually for the audience-- it is what joyful movie-making feels like. Having finally gotten over my dislike for Tom Cruise, I was able to truly enjoy these two gracefully aging stars (Cruise and Diaz) breathe new life into the espionage/romance action/comedy genre.

My only complaint is that a one-on-one sit down scene between smitten hostage/hostage-er would have benefited the character/plot development. These two really deserved a quiet glass of wine admist all the grade-A action sequences. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this movie is not so unlike a highly stylized and contemporary version of Hitchcock's North by Northwest or To Catch a Thief.

What would you call this, a romantic-action-comedy? Knight and Day was a pretty good movie. Unfortunately, I don't really like Cameron Diaz. Tom Cruise I don't mind, hes a good actor, but Cameron Diaz I just hate. Tom Cruise's performance was pretty good, but Cameron Diaz, not so much. The action scenes were actually pretty cool, and the humor wasn't hilarious, but it wasn't as bad as Grown Ups. So overall, knight and Day was okay, but there were too many scenes that I felt, didn't belong. 4.6