Nothing new to see here

I went with much rich enthusiasm to check out the new Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz matchup called Knight and Day. I had followed the behind the scenes looks at Mr. Teeth as he performed stunt after stunt, leaping onto cars travelling at high speeds, all while flashing his pearly whites. I had anticipated the show to be light and fun, like whipped cream on a dish of Jell-O, perfect for the first week of summer.

And James Mangold has time and time again proven himself to be a versatile and accomplished director with titles like Girl, Interrupted, Cop Land, 3:10 to Yuma, Identity and Walk the Line. I even remember liking his first feature from 1995, a fine and subtle masterpiece called Heavy with Liv Tyler and Pruitt Taylor Vince. They are all superlative works.

Knight and Day literally had everything going for it, but it is little more than an illusion. It’s just one big showbiz scam.

The illusion is apt for the story since Diaz’s character, June Havens, has essentially stumbled onto what is supposed to be the bad boy fantasy in the flesh. She meets Roy Miller (Cruise) at the airport and her thoughts immediately turn to a wild affair. It’s much wilder and faster than she had anticipated as Miller turns out to be a rogue secret agent on a purported mission to save a mysterious Macguffin called the Zephyr from getting into the wrong hands.

Or is he? Everybody else says he’s crazy and dangerous. It’s a Jekyll and Hyde situation — is he the greatest guy or the worst? If you ask me, it doesn’t really matter. The whole movie is a sub-par piece of work with an odd, off-putting vibe. Cruise’s classic over-the-top acting achieves strange new heights. He’s made a career by pulling off the whole ‘he’s so good, he’s dangerous’ routine that it was no stretch for him to walk the line between a sincere, charming Boy Scout and a violent, crazy killer. He knows all too well how to fake his craft but comes across as no more genuine than a used car salesman.

The whole film was far too much of nothing. In fact, it was almost complete nonsense, and not the good kind, especially since it was all conducted with Cruise’s winning smile. Frankly, it was just bizarre. Sure, it’s commendable that he did so many stunts but that doesn’t make a performance authentic, only more obvious in its ardent eagerness without any real art to back it up. Again, think of the used car salesman pitching his wares on a boisterous TV ad. He’s a very successful charlatan and little else. He’s always just playing up his own personality, whatever that means, but in the end it’s still just him in the role. It’s a tragedy since he does far superior work in smaller roles.

A large part of the problem here is this project bounced around far too much and it all started with the writers. It felt like Mr. And Mrs. Smith but with less cohesion and atmosphere. Too many cooks spoil the broth comes to mind. Here, it was like one cook made the broth and then another cook came along and cooked it again. And then five more did the same thing.

Still, it was good to see the Hollywood machine is still trying to find an appropriate vehicle for Cruise and Diaz, who seem like they should have good chemistry yet don’t. They failed here almost as magnificently as they did in Vanilla Sky. Considering how much carnage resulted from both blockbusters, maybe the attempt should be called Cerulean Skies where they each play pilots in love but fly in different directions. Eventually they get grounded and decide to go off and fly their own plane together to wherever they want to go. Their first stop should be acting school.