{"id":5305,"date":"2010-06-23T17:41:35","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T21:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=5305"},"modified":"2011-06-18T02:38:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T06:38:13","slug":"5305","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=5305","title":{"rendered":"Knight and Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"He looks aghast at the poster for the party. I Sold My Mom\u2019s Wheelchair<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDance music for old people?\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s the moment that John Cusack’s character in Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity<\/em> realizes that this poster is being used to promote a band he just signed, and the party and album title will be one he’s inadvertently endorsed. Duped by his girlfriend, he’s agreed to attend an album release and perform as a DJ at a party that he will probably loathe.<\/p>\n

So what Cusack attempts to do to fix the problem is to try to convince the group that he just signed not<\/em> to come to the release party. (The group is made up of skater teenagers, so the title of the party is actually meant ironically.)<\/p>\n

\"\"Is the concept of James Mangold\u2019s Knight and Day<\/em>, which is basically \u201cAction movie for old people,\u201d supposed to be ironic? Certainly the title, which seems even less appropriate once you\u2019ve actually seen the film, is an attempt at a punny dodge for the subject at hand: Tom Cruise is getting old, he\u2019ll be 48 next month, and he doesn\u2019t like it. He doesn\u2019t feel comfortable playing an aging spy, so he\u2019s used a physical trainer and a lot of CGI* to give us the impression that he\u2019s in tip top shape. That he runs like he\u2019s a werewolf, as if he were on all fours, is immaterial, he\u2019s buff and he wants us to see those abs. He\u2019s going to jump onto the hoods of moving cars from impossible heights, and you\u2019re going to like it.<\/p>\n

Cruise has brought such single-minded reflections of his own demons to the screen before. Mission Impossible III<\/em>, released at the height of the furor over his couch-jumping and modern psychology denying antics, is not that concerned with being an action movie, so much as a hammering home of the idea that a nuclear family can be created out of any unusual situation, which happened to coincide to his own marriage to the much-younger Katie Holmes.<\/p>\n

\"\"Having your ego front and center is not a new thing for a movie star (as opposed to Magnolia<\/em>, where Cruise is actually an actor); since the entire point of their existence is to repeatedly play characters with only the slightest variations on their public persona. Knight and Day<\/em> is what they used to call an actor\u2019s holiday, except in this case, it\u2019s because the acting itself never showed up to the set. Seeing generally excellent actors like Peter Saarsgard reduced to playing forgettable and rote villains would be depressing if there was a hint that there was any thought put into anything but the over-the-top action sequences.<\/p>\n

Some of these action scenes in Knight and Day<\/em>, none of which are believable, are very kinetic and creative (especially the car chases); credit must be given to the snappy editing by Quincy Z. Gunderson** and Michael McCusker. I can\u2019t say the same for director James Mangold<\/span><\/a> who can\u2019t find his way out of the mechanical nature of the rogue spy story and never gives Cameron Diaz anything more than the standard damsel-in-distress role; bubbly, frantic, and irritating. Mangold has such a poor idea of pacing, the movie is dead between the action, that instead of trying to create interest in the dialogue, he just changes locations or countries, as if we\u2019d entered Bourne territory.<\/p>\n

Despite the Bourne implication, Knight and Day<\/em> is lighthearted and silly, to the point that you don\u2019t mind Cruise\u2019s immobilized forehead, or that the movie is a glorified video game, or that Mangold obviously has henchman entering a scene wearing dark helmets just so we can\u2019t see their faces and he can recycle the stuntmen as they get knocked off.<\/p>\n

\"\"So little time is given to trying to develop the story, something about a battery that\u2019s a renewable energy source and trying to protect the scientist\/creator, that the sub-plot about Cameron Diaz\u2019s sister\u2019s wedding gets 10 or 15 minutes of screen time, but the groom doesn\u2019t even seem to have a name. Diaz, who is dressed like a scarecrow for the first act, all wrong for the opening plane crash into a cornfield, is still recovering from the soul devouring <\/span><\/a>What Happens in Vegas<\/span><\/a>\u2026, <\/em>a star vehicle which showed her at her least <\/em>attractive, is game for the Knight and Day <\/em>nonsense, and gives an effort at creating chemistry with Cruise.<\/p>\n

However, Cruise is not interested in chemistry, he\u2019s never had it with anyone but himself (not even the bottles in Cocktail<\/em>), and though in Knight and Day<\/em> he\u2019s supposed to be a charming, indestructible superspy, he\u2019s pretty off-putting, more like James Bond without the social skills. If anything, Knight and Day<\/em>, which strands Paul Dano (as the scientist) behind a pre-pubescent-style mustache, works better if Cruise is legitimately crazy and doesn\u2019t know it, so the arbitrary plot misdirection (why did Cruise think that Diaz would overhear\u2026) and criss-crosses (the behavior of the CIA in the film is just distracting, not intriguing), are in the way. But the action, is often on par with but less violent than Wanted<\/em><\/span><\/a>, and though Knight and Day<\/em> is instantly forgettable (no, really, I can\u2019t remember much of it a few days after the screening), it\u2019s not always annoying and only moderately derivative***, which is a pretty high recommendation for an obnoxious summer movie.<\/p>\n

\"\"* The effects, which are almost all convincing (the motorcycle chase has some blending and matting problems) were done by Weta Digital, who did stunning work on last year’s District 9<\/em><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

** I’m still having a hard time believing that this isn’t a pseudonym.<\/p>\n

*** The similarities to True Lies<\/em> even extend to a truth serum sequence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He looks aghast at the poster for the party. I Sold My Mom\u2019s Wheelchair. \u201cDance music for old people?\u201d It’s the moment that John Cusack’s character in Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity realizes that this poster is being used to promote a band he just signed, and the party and album title will be one he’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[6569,5188,4226,3173,660,22,130,6573,6580,6577,4895,6576,2601,3504,4597,6566,6570,6575,1079,518,2556,824,4985,6574,6563,3537,6572,4008,4600,6583,6565,6564,2482,140,2862,5652,6579,6571,5189,6578,276,6568,192,6567,6582,6581,1098,1184,1084,1097,3174,4573,676,3645,3075,2262],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}