Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for action violence and a hiccup of profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.25.10
Buy DVD: Knight and Day (Single-Disc Edition)
Movies like Knight and Day make me tired.
They also make me long for the days of quality romantic espionage thrillers such as The 39 Steps
As opposed to the big-screen debut of so-called writer Patrick O'Neill, whose screenplay for Knight and Day is no more than a disconnected string of meet-cute one-liners separated by lots of flying bullets and the destruction of considerable personal property. I'm frankly surprised that Tom Cruise would have been lured into such a numb-nuts project; his taste generally is better.
Granted, the second and third Mission: Impossible entries have their cartoonish qualities, but at least they make sense within their own stylistic exaggerations. Knight and Day is little more than a big-budget "idiot story": so named because each and every character behaves like a total idiot at all times.
Heck, I can't even explain the title. The "knight" has dual references, most notably the little toy figure that Cruise's Roy Miller uses to conceal the super-secret scientific prize that everybody wants in this deranged mess of a movie. But "Day" doesn't relate to anything beyond the apparent attempt to concoct a cute play on words.
And yes, this perfectly typifies the sort of thought - or absence thereof - that went into writing the entire film.
Consider: The high-tech gizmo that fuels an endless series of chases and confrontations is a new-fangled battery that never runs down ... not ever. Only one prototype exists, and Roy keeps it close. Capturing or killing Roy therefore might be reasonable options for his various pursuers, but how are we to explain several attempts to blow him up?
Hey, gang: Blow up Roy, blow up the battery. Game over.
Yep, as a writer, O'Neill is quite the deep thinker.