This movie doesn't deserve to be bombing at the box office as badly as it is. It's an entertaining popcorn flick, an old-fashioned light caper movie with a few pretty European settings (Salzburg, Seville), some well-done chase and fight scenes, and a pair of charismatic stars cast solidly in the middle in their comfort zone.
Tom Cruise is Roy, a charming, cocky spy, and there's no one better at this sort of strutting confidence. Cameron Diaz is June, the woman who gets caught up in his latest mission. One of the movie's pleasant surprises is that June isn't just a clueless airhead; she gets more confident as the movie goes on, and by the end, she's an equal partner in the action.
The plot is pretty much beside the point, as is customary for this type of movie; there's a McGuffin that everyone is chasing, and that's really all you need to know. The chase scenes are both exciting and funny -- I particularly enjoyed watching Cruise clinging calmly to the hood of a speeding car, repeatedly asking Diaz to open the door for him -- and the fight scenes are staged so that you can tell what's happening, which is something of a novelty these days.
I liked the running gag that has chunks of the story being presented in 4- or 5-second snippets as one character or another drifts in and out of consciousness after having been shot or drugged or otherwise taken out of commission. There's a solid supporting cast -- Viola Davis, Celia Weston, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Dano -- and while this certainly isn't a movie that's placing any great acting demands on them, they're all doing entertaining work with none of the "just here for the paycheck" that sometimes slips through when talented actors do light entertainment.
Knight and Day isn't great art, and no one involved needs to be preparing an Oscar speech, but it's a lot of fun, and better than most of the drivel we've been given this summer.
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