Movie Reviews  |  PG-13  |  View Trailer  |  Jun 23, 2010

Say what you will about Tom Cruise and his tirades over the past few years, but he’s got charisma when he’s on the big screen. So much charisma that he can carry an entire movie on his back without flinching. Such is the case with the new romantic-action-comedy “Knight and Day.”

Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) is a spy. One of those spies that makes everything from death-defying motorcycle chases to running along rooftops look easy. Like Jason Bourne, Roy is a lethal weapon all by himself, but unlike Bourne, Roy has fun doing it. While Bourne wears a scowl on his face for much of the trilogy, Roy goes about espionage with a giant grin.

June Havens (Cameron Diaz) is the innocent bystander. Trying to get a flight home for her sister’s wedding, Roy uses the unwitting June to sneak an item past airline security for him. Why he does this isn’t really clear, since Roy seems like the kind of guy that could have snuck the object past security without any problems. It’s ok though, we aren’t supposed to question much here.

Turns out Roy is being hunted down by the US government. He’s gone rogue, or at least that’s what the government says. The plane that June and Roy ultimately get on is full of deadly assassins who have been hired to kill Roy and retrieve whatever he has in his possession.

As Roy is fighting off one attacker after another on the plane, we soon realize this is much more a comedy than an action movie. That’s great news for us, because Tom Cruise has the comedic timing of any great standup comedian. He fights his attackers off as he cracks jokes, but the jokes never seem forced or badly written. It’s a laugh-out-loud scene that only leads to more hilarious scenes down the road. Take for example a chase scene that involves June in a car with devious agents, while Roy chases them down. We only see what June sees, which is a fun take on a chase scene in and of itself. As we see Roy fly past one of the windows he disappears from view, the only thing we see after that is his motorcycle slowing drifting into a lake with him nowhere to be seen. The effect is one of surprise, but also it’s just darned funny.

“Knight and Day” isn’t a perfect comedic action movie, in the vein of the early ‘Indiana Jones’ movies. The third act gets far too serious for its own good, giving us flashbacks of the dreadful “Mission: Impossible 2.” CG scenes run amok, it’s true. At times the movie feels sloppy because of all the blatant computer enhanced graphics. Planes, SUVs flipping end over end, there’s no stop to the CG here. Thankfully the shaky-cam, which has infected most every modern action film, is kept at bay. Fight scenes are quickly cut, yes, but give us more of a feel for the actual space being taken up by the actors.

Tom Cruise is a delight here. Whatever you think about him as a person, it’s hard to deny his uncanny screen presence. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Cruise take the reins of a comedic role (not counting his hilarious, but brief role in “Tropic Thunder”). Cruise and Diaz do have chemistry, and their building fondness for each other seems genuine. “Knight and Day”’ is a pleasant surprise, but don’t be surprised when the third act fizzles out.