James Mangold (Walk the Line and Girl, Interrupted) pawns off his directing credentials to shepherd through this spastic piece of celebrity eye-candy action drivel. First-time screenwriter Patrick O'Neill pieces together a series of shoot-em-up CGI chase scenes that exist as inert bubbles of characterless plot points in a sea of vacuous narrative foam.
Cameron Diaz plays June Havens, an implausible muscle-car mechanic living in Boston. Her fireman ex-boyfriend Rodney (Marc Blucas) still has the hots for her. To June's dimwitted surprise, she gets wrapped up with CIA counter spy Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) when Roy conveniently slips a MacGuffin into her luggage before the two board the same flight.
Once in the air, Roy must dispatch everyone on the plane — pilots included — while she fixes her make-up in the restroom. One crash-landing later, Roy and June adopt each other as vaguely romantic counterparts on a circuitous tail-chasing mission to upset the peace of a desert island, disrupt a public bull run in Spain and sully elegant backstreets in Austria.
Closer in tone to the recent Mr. and Mrs. Smith knock-off Killers than the suave and superbad Bourne Identity, Knight and Day is a shell of a movie. Cruise might look better than most 47-year-old movie stars, and Diaz isn't exactly hard on the eyes, but you need more than looks to keep an audience's attention. Grade: C-
Opens June 23. Check out theaters and show times, see the trailer and get theater details here.
