Roundabout Christmas, we got our first look at the Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz/James Mangold romantic-action-comedy “Knight & Day,” and it was… well, a little underwhelming. Most of the comedy fell a little flat, and some of the action felt a bit weightless. IMDB premiered a new trailer for the movie last night, and it does at least seem like an improvement.
The film follows a woman who becomes embroiled with a secret agent, and this longer clip gives a clearer look at some of the supporting cast (Mark Blucas, Viola Davis and Peter Sarsgaard), as well as a better idea of the ambiguous nature of Cruise’s character. The comedy’s not looking much better (there doesn’t seem to be a ton of chemistry between the two stars), but we’re at least impressed by the old fashioned feel to the action; there doesn’t seem to be too much reliance on CGI or shakey-cam, which is sort of refreshing these days.
We did enjoy the Scott Frank draft of the script we read, but it looks to have been rewritten fairly heavily by director James Mangold, so we’re not sure how much it’ll hold. The most intriguing part of the film seems to be in the casting of Cruise; just as “Up in the Air” provided a sort of meta-commentary on George Clooney’s public persona, the idea of Cruise playing a former superspy who’s taken ‘a total break from reality’ seems to mirror the path his career’s taken in the last few years.