Directed by: James Mangold
\nStarring: Tom cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Jordi Molla, Paul Dano
\nRated: PG-13 for sequences of action violence throughout, and brief
\nstrong language.<\/p>\n
\nSuspension of disbelief can be a tricky thing. A little bit lets us
\nbelieve in magic for a couple of hours, or in elves, or vampires, or
\nin a driver who can make his car do impossible things. Suspension of
\ndisbelief is the oil that helps the engine of the movie run smoothly.
\nToo much oil, though, makes your engine blow gaskets and stop working.
\nIf a movie demands that its audience suspend their disbelief too much,
\nit will fall apart.
\nThat is the biggest problem I have with “Knight and Day,” the new Tom
\nCruise vehicle. It requires you to suspend your disbelief so strongly
\nover the course of the film that by halfway in, the characters don’t
\neven seem vaguely real anymore. What’s the point in worrying about
\nsomeone if their actions have no effect on the course of the plot?
\nThere’s no logic to try and figure out, no possible events to see
\ncoming and hope against, because what is happening on the screen in
\nfront of you has so little bearing on what is going to happen later.
\nWe’re presumably supposed to hang on for the ride and just believe,
\nbut there’s not much of a ride when there’s no logical progression.
\nThe setup of the film, and even the first 20 minutes or so, were
\nextremely promising: an ordinary woman, June (Cameron Diaz), gets
\ncaught up in the adventures of a spy, Roy (Cruise), who is trying to
\nsave a genius inventor and his powerful invention from a rogue agent
\nwho has turned the government against him. June starts out pretty
\nsympathetic — she restores old cars, is lugging a rolling suitcase
\nfull of parts, and when Roy tells her the pilots of the plane they’re
\non are dead, she initially thinks he’s joking.
\nRoy is promising too. He’s every spy cliche rolled into one: handsome,
\na top-notch fighter, able to land a plane in a cornfield in a pinch,
\nand considerate enough to give June a detailed warning about the
\nbaddies who will likely come after her. He drugs her, takes her home,
\nleaves her a nice breakfast, and then disappears. At this point, I
\nthought my initial impressions from the trailers (namely, that this
\nwas going to be an astonishingly bad film) were wrong. I should never
\nhave doubted the director who brought us “Walk the Line” and “3:10 to
\nYuma,” I told myself.
\nSadly, my early optimism was quickly dashed and my doubts were proven
\nto be spot-on. June ignores Roy’s warnings and lets the government
\nagents get her into a car, so she then has to be rescued. She goes
\ninto shock and tries to get away from him, but he chases her down,
\ntells her she has no chance on her own, and she throws her lot in with
\nhim. Then he winds up having to drug her again and what looks, from
\nthe glimpses we see through her eyes, like the best part of the movie
\nis glossed over until they’re on a desert island and she wakes up in a
\nbikini for some light romance and banter.
\nJune’s mechanic abilities vanish almost immediately and she alternates
\nbetween shrieking damsel and skillful amateur spy (Roy compliments her
\non several occasions). Roy has the same expression of
\nbarely-restrained mania for almost the entire film, making the
\nagency’s allegations that he’s gone crazy pretty believable. On the
\nrare occasions when he’s being serious, it’s impossible to tell
\nwhether he’s lying or not (he lies for a variety of reasons, most of
\nwhich the film wants us to believe turn out to be for June’s own
\ngood). June and Roy fall for each other for no obvious reason, since
\ntheir chemistry consists of her getting them in danger and him having
\nto get them out.
\nThe best thing I can say about the film is that the special effects
\nare very, very good. Most action movies these days have good enough
\neffects and cinematography that even if the writing and acting are
\nappalling, you have pretty things to look at. “Knight and Day” is no
\nexception. Unfortunately, its writing is some of the laziest I’ve ever
\nhad the misfortune to see. The “seeing things through a drugged
\nperson’s eyes” approach is used several times to gloss over the
\nlogistics and fighting necessary to move from point A to point C. It
\nwas kind of funny the first time, in a quasi-satirical kind of way,
\nbut eventually it just looked like the writers couldn’t be bothered to
\ncondense their film so it would fit the time limit, so they cut whole
\nsections and replaced them with druged-protagonist sequences.
\nThe idea behind the film is a good one, but the execution is so
\nterrible that the only reasons I can think of to recommend the film to
\nanyone are masochism or an obsessive love for the main actors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed by: James Mangold Starring: Tom cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Jordi Molla, Paul Dano Rated: PG-13 for sequences of action violence throughout, and brief strong language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-6c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}