Review of Knight and Day (2010) by Laura Patricia C — 04 Sep 2012

With two immensely likeable leads and a decent premise, "Knight & Day" was never going to be that bad - but it isn't great, either. Cruise and Diaz have undeniable chemistry and screen presence, and their up and down relationship plays to their strengths - Cruise as the intelligent but socially abrupt killer and Diaz as the love interest who gets caught in the middle of an ongoing war.

Even the script is pretty much perfect, with enough humour and actual emotion to make you care about the characters, but with thankfully not enough feelings to make it a generic rom-com...unfortunately, although it may not be a rom-com, it is decidedly generic, and the formulaic route that it chooses loses it points; don't misunderstand, I know that it doesn't want to be anything else other than Summer blockbuster entertainment, but does it have to be so similar to all the others to succeed? James Mangold, a director whose canon includes 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line, two films that perfectly ignore clichés, just hasn't put enough of his own heart and soul into this to make it memorable - and, although it may be fun and exciting whilst your watching it, it simply (and sadly) doesn't make a lasting impression.