Knight and Day

My friend Amy and I happened to have movie passes at a local theatre so off we went to see the latest Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz movie. (I'm not implying they do movies together a lot, the only other movie they've done together that I can remember is Vanilla Sky.) The movie hadn't received much in the way of good reviews but I was interested as it was filmed in Boston and I really wanted to hear more regional language screw-ups. After all, no one around here says: "and then, we were driving down the I-93". No. Around here, time is precious. We drive down 93. 128. The Pike. The Pike is the only highway that gets "the" before it, the "definite article". There is another little language anomaly that had me in giggles but I won't repeat it here. After all, I don't want to spoil it for you.

I will tell you this was not Cruise's or Diaz's best performance. I won't blame it on them. Tom and Cameron were clearly trying their darndest to entertain, be comic, goofy and deliver a delightful summer movie. The fault lies, not in the stars, but in the director and the screenplay.

The story revolves around a young genius inventor(to whom we are introduced late in the film) played by Paul Dano. If I have this right (and I hope I do), Paul Dano played Dwayne, the brother, in Little Miss Sunshine. If you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine, do yourself a favor and see it as soon as possible. He is probably the best actor in there. At least, he is my favorite. And he does a very nice job here, for the limited time he is on screen. But I've wandered away from the central thought...... Oh yes... the story. It revolves around the young genius inventor, a group of agents who are purportedly protecting him, and an arms dealer who wants his invention..... that everybody believes is working.... and into this mix unwittingly wanders Cameron Diaz. Or did she? We all know what happens next. Mayhem. I love that word.

I very much enjoyed the movie. I laughed quite a bit. I had a lot of moments that were "Wait.... how did they get there from here? they can't do that!" It was fun to try to recognize different sites in Boston but they kept mixing it up. Overall, I'd give it a B- in general but I laughed a lot. Not always where the filmmakers wanted me to.