Blu-Ray Review: Simon Says KNIGHT & DAY is a Goofy But Good Bond For Girls
Who'd have thought that Scientology-loving, Oprah-sofa-jumping Tom Cruise would have a self-referential (if not entirely self-aware) sense of humour? The evidence is there - remember the MTV Awards skit with Ben Stiller as his stunt double? And although he isn't all that great at comedy- I still don't enjoy watching him gyrating as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder - Cruise has managed to prove in Knight & Day that he does have the range to offer a reasonably enjoyable character at the same time as poking fun at some of his former roles.
Knight & Day is available now on Blu-ray...
I won't get too bogged down in the synopsis, because we've already covered it in Oliver's original cinematic review, which offered the following:
Tom Cruise plays Roy Miller, a possible rogue agent who enters the life of June Havens; (Cameron Diaz) a down on her luck everywoman with a thirst for love and adventure. She gets more than she bargained for when she boards a plane to Boston, chats up her charming secret agent seatmate and then as a result ends up relentlessly pursued around the world by the FBI and deadly foreign terrorists, who seek a secret unlimited energy sourceĀ
Rumour has it that Cruise turned down the initially male lead in Salt because it was too similar to some of his other roles - Mission Impossible and Minority Report predominantly- and then took a swipe at his own decision to take those roles in the first place by parodying that type of character and movie in Knight & Day. But even if you didn't know that, or even any of Cruise's former works, you would probably think he was attempting to undo his good work in the role - and it is largely very good- with the slightly over-the-top knowingness of the tone of his performance.
Like when Less Grossman pulled out his great big hands for a second time and danced his way through the MTV Awards a while back, you get the sense that Roy as a role is far funnier to Cruise himself than to anyone else watching. The knowing winks and nudge-nudge moments that form Cruise's relationship with the audience, just below the surface of the character gets a little off-putting at times, and you can't help but wish that Cruise had been a little more restrained.
This then is a James Bond flick shot from the perspective of the helpless heroine. June, like the audience, is never afforded the luxury of knowing where Roy's skills came from, so when the action bursts out of the narrative it is quite jarring, and very enjoyable for both. We don't know Roy's capacity, we are never given a tooling up or training sequence, and crucially we never really know which side he is on, which again helps when it comes to empathising with June's own suspicions.
One of the chief problems with Salt was that it never really cast enough doubt on Evelyn's position, even when faced with the most condemning of evidence, Salt was always the good guy because the audience was forced into empathising with her, because we follow her everywhere. It is an unfortunate result of biased narrative perspective, and not one that can attract blame, but Knight & Day remarkably shows how the double-double-cross spy movie can work from another, atypical perspective.
But then, James Bond women are never quite as sappy as the perspective we are left with. Yes they might be criminally objectified in the early days, and then offered as dangerous femme fatales further in the history of the franchise- an interesting comment on empowered femininity you could suggest- but despite their womanliness they had spunk. And balls.
Cameron Diaz's June isn't exactly the simpering whinger that she could have been: she has moments of strength, and her naivety and fear is played mostly for laughs, but there is something quite Bridget Jonesy and pathetic about her when the film opens and she melts at the sight of Cruise's Roy. There's definitely a whiff of desperation, as a near middle-aged woman becomes more aware of her biological clock ticking and yearns for a man, which is a little reductive really, but then her character arc means it is she who gains most from the film's conclusion as she discovers strength and whatnot.
And, in the final reckoning, despite initially expressing my enjoyment for the parody aspect of the film, the lasting legacy of Knight & Day is of the film that it could have been. Tone down Cruise's knowing winks, cut out the slight dip in the middle where the pace changes, and make everything just that little bit tighter, and we could have had a seriously good film. But then Cruise would never have signed on to play his Ethan Hunt character again by a different name, and you have to suspect the chemistry between himself and Diaz wouldn't have been quite so vibrant in someone else's hands.
The film would have been an entirely different prospect if there were others in the leads - someone less well-known perhaps- and it's initial reception, before even press screenings, seemed somewhat poisoned against the project because it was "another A-list, cut and paste Fox attempted blockbuster". I myself doubted it would be any more than a paint by numbers that didn't need to try, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, as I would imagine most of the cynics will be watching it first time round on Blu-ray.
As a side-note, someone needs to commission a film in which Peter Sarsgaard and Kiefer Sutherland play twins - one possibly evil- because they look EXACTLY the bloody same. Or maybe Sarsgaard could be brought into a future 24 film as Jack Bauer's deranged, terrorist brother Joe?
Quality
Not great, not terrible. The transfer is okay, but everyone looks a bit porcine, thanks to the overly pink-flesh tones. Colour is the major problem- while hyped colours are usually a good thing for hyper-real action films, adding to the vibrancy of action sequences, this can only work when the resolution and contrast are perfectly pitched. Otherwise, like Knight & Day, you end up with a film that looks like it has been colourised in post-production, by an overzealous child with crayons.
Detail is immaculate, and thankfully there the transfer retains some texture thanks to remaining grain, which always seems to help films feel more filmic. And even more thankfully there are no anomalies, and no over-bearing use of high-definition "magic" to report.
Extras
For "Extras" here, it is probably far more appropriate to read "Press Pack Material"- there are a measly five mini featurettes, which are nothing but fluff and advertising- for instance one of them is a behind-the-scenes look at Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes going to London to see The Black Eyed Peas perform "Someday" the original song of the credits- who really wants to watch that? It's all pandering a little too much to the film's status as a star vehicle, despite that being the worst thing that it could be considered. When it comes to it, the featurettes don't add anything to the film: there is no insight into filming, or pre- and post-production, it's just fluff. And that annoys me. There's nothing else here really apart from promos and god-awful virals of Cruise and Diaz playing football together. Oh and a trailer. These are all things you might expect to see before the film, to whet the appetite a little maybe. To count them as Extras is false trading to say the least.
Wilder Knights and Crazier Days (12 mins) Boston Days and Spanish Knights (8 mins) Knight and "Someday" (9 mins) Viral Video: Soccer (1 min) Viral Video: Kick (1 min) Knight and Day: Story (3 mins) Knight and Day: Scope (3 mins) Theatrical Trailer (2 mins) Knight & Day is available on Blu-ray now.