GRADE: D+

This is a movie that I did not anticipate to be one of the better movies of the year, or even one that I would really enjoy. The previews alone left me skeptical. The aging stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz coupled with a ridiculous looking storyline gave me little reason to believe this could be anything but a bomb. Before walking in, I was all for giving this movie a chance. It had received luke warm reviews meaning I could go either way from enjoying to hating Knight and Day. Walking out, it was laughable what this movie tried to pull on audiences. This movie was not good.

Knight and Day begins at the airport as Cruise and Diaz have two chance meetings en route to their flights. It turns out they are on the same flight, and on board the plane are dangerous people trying to take Cruise down. Of course he foils their attempts to kill him by taking them out with his “ninja” skills. With Diaz now being a witness to what happened, Cruise decides he needs to protect her too. The movie from then on is a jumbled mess of scenes going in this direction and that, never going out of the way to give the audience a strong grasp of what is going on.

The details to why bad men were chasing Cruise was anti-climatically explained with a drawling and boring monologue from Mr. Scientology himself. When writers tell us what to know instead of showing us, this is known as uncreative storytelling. With all the names thrown around in the speech, it is difficult to be fully on pace with Cruise until the characters’ names are cemented in your head. At this early junction, they are not. Much of the storytelling was sub-par like the previous example, and that was why Knight and Day could not be a success in my book. The characters got some elaboration as the movie progressed, but at that point I was dulled by the constant barrage of action.

As I mentioned above, a huge flaw in Knight and Day was the over the top, mindless, non-stop action. There were actually points during the action sequences when my friend Dan and I were laughing almost hysterically at the ridiculous-ness taking place on screen. Tom Cruise surfed on a speeding car roof while chasing down Cameron Diaz who was steering a separate speeding car over 100 miles per hour from the back seat. Really?! Really. This movie was set in reality by the way. The writers never said, “Hey, suspend your disbelief. This is an over the top movie and we are about to bring some unrealistic to the table.” If you want an audience to believe this type of action, you have to tell us why we should.

Another example of how moronic this film was featured Cruise and Diaz being surrounded by an elite team of guerrilla soldiers who strangely could not land a bullet in Diaz as she ran around like a chicken minus a head or Cruise as he popped out from cover and took out several soldiers in higher fortified positions. My favorite piece of stupidity had to be the motorcycle chase late in the film. Just when you didn’t think this movie could get anymore unbelievable, the two have to avoid the running of the bulls and their pursuers through the city streets (see the first picture). Seriously?! Seriously. That really happened in this movie. The timing is so perfectly manufactured that they actually have to evade a pack of bulls and the people running in this traditional event.

Overall, Knight and Day was the worst movie I have seen this year. While I have not viewed the similar but much worse rated Killers, starring Ashton Kutcher and  Katherine Heigl, I am sure this movie rivals Killers in terrible-ness. My shaking head wouldn’t stop as the overbearing, never ceasing action sequences kept piling up. Instead of spending time trying to make sense of the story, the writers spent their time concocting wasteful unrealistic action sequences that are close to entertaining, but far from captivating.

What Should You Do? If you do disregard my warning and check out Knight and Day, turn off your brain; that is the only way to make sense of it all.