In My Opinion: Knight and Day

Have you seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Y’know, the film with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as a married couple who bytheway are also assassins hired to kill each other? Okay, so you remember how that involved a great mix of thrilling action (explosions, chase scenes, gunfire) and romantic banter? Except that it was a little too sensual because Angelina is frankly too lusty to be allowed? Knight and Day is like that, but with an acceptable level of sexuality. Probably because Cameron Diaz plays an adorable spaz and Tom Cruise will forevermore be known as a couch jumper.

(In case you can’t tell, I really liked this movie. Bad box office and reviews aside.)

Tom Cruise plays Roy Miller, a spy who’s gone rogue. (Or has he?) Cameron Diaz plays June Havens, a car restorer* whose meeting with Roy in the Wichita Airport is pure coincidence. (Or is it?) They end up on the same flight to Boston, where all hell breaks loose. And by that, I mean that Roy ends up killing everyone on the plane in incredibly badass ways. Ways that almost make you squee for Tom Cruise. The COUCH JUMPER.

Miller has to crash the plane to destroy all the evidence and confuse the fuzz. He drugs June; she wakes up the next morning in her own bed. And proceeds to find Post-Its from Roy that shift her hazy memories of a plane crash from “Oh no it di’int” to “Oh yes it did.”

The fuzz soon find and question June. Tell her that Roy is A Very Bad Man. Ask her to come with them, please. Roy had warned her about all of this, so she’s understandably confused. Luckily, Roy shows up to open a can of whoopass.

We then entail on the “Running from the law” portion of the film. The Alps, trains, and a kid scientist are involved. The film’s McGuffin is introduced: a tiny, uberpowerful battery called Zephyr. Shooting. Car chases. Salzburg. Running of the bulls. Etc.

I don’t want to spoil the ending, but suffice to say that Cameron Diaz gets to drive to Cape Horn, and Tom Cruise gets the girl, and not once is a single couch jumped upon.

Roy: Some people are gonna come looking for you now.
June: Why?
Roy: They'll tell you I'm mentally unstable and violent and dangerous and it will all sound very convincing.
June: I'm already convinced.

* Not in all my years of oil changes have I ever met a mechanic who looks remotely like Cameron Diaz. Or any serviceperson, for that matter. I’m just sayin’.