Knight and Day (12A)

Dir. James Mangold, USA, 2010, 109 mins

Cast: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Paul Dano, Peter Saarsgard             

Review by Matthew Rodgers

The combined high profile notoriety of Tom Cruise's couch surfing, along with his own personal beliefs has meant that a once genuinely stratospheric star has faded from the consciousness of moviegoers, who now queue around the block for an R-Patz or Leo movie instead.

But Cruise's recent turn as profanity laden, gut busting agent to the stars Len Grossman in Tropic Thunder indicated a desire to stop taking himself so seriously, signalling a change of direction for this always compelling actor (lest we forget Born on the 4 th of July and Jerry Maguire ) and a chance to have some fun that would hopefully translate to the audience. Call it his attempt at Mission Impossibly enjoyable.

Knight and Day manages to achieve this, but its margin of success is as narrow as the gap between Cruise's head and a flying car during one of the movie's more im press ive tunnel-based action sequences.

June Havens (Diaz) is a car restorer (If you can swallow that), who catches a fateful flight home in the company of the alluringly mysterious Roy (Cruise). Little does she know he is an international spy in possession of a plot-propelling maguffin, who is being pursued across the globe by a bunch of shady government operatives - the kind that only seem to exist in the movies. Whether June likes it or not she is along for the ride.

Heavily marketed during the summer scrum, this ticks all of the action boxes for a movie that feels a decade too late. The over-riding feeling is you've seen all of the really funny bits in the trailers and you've seen a past-his-best action hero do this before with the forgettable Harrison Ford duffer Six Days and Seven Nights .

It's frustrating given the talent involved. Director James Mangold knows how to build momentum and still maintain a narrative focus on two huge stars, as seen in the excellent 3:10 to Yuma . Knight and Day matches that ex press train pace with its fluffy, fun action events but they carry no weight beyond the spectacle. The more inspired scenes, such as the brilliant narrative condensing device during Diaz's hallucinogenic episodes, only exacerbate how ordinary the rest of the movie is.

Completely ignoring the wasted Paul Dano and Peter Sarsgaard (much in the same way the script does), it's down to the reunited Vanilla Sky headliners to achieve Knight and Day's pass mark.

Cruise hasn't lost the charm. His cheddar grin is still as effective as it was behind those huge Risky Business sunglasses and he is never better than when acting 'on the edge'. But his Roy is as 2-D as they come and we have very little insight into what makes him tick beyond a quickly forgotten back story.

Diaz is equally excellent and on the few occasions when the plot takes a breather, the sparks fly between the pair. She hasn't been as likeably at ease and convincing in a role since Being John Malkovich .

The film is disappointing because you expect more than adequate, but the winning combination of Cruise and Diaz and some lively set-pieces makes Knight and Day a throwaway indulgence.