Knight and Day

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz team up for a stunt-filled, spectacular escapade that careens from Boston to Wichita, from an atoll in the Azores to a train ride through the Alps, forcing them to outmaneuver rampaging bulls in Seville and leap rooftops in Austria—all for a mysterious mission. Charismatic Roy Miller (Cruise) says he's a government agent but behaves more like an assassin-on-the-loose when he commandeers and crash-lands a near-empty jetliner in a Kansas cornfield, taking passenger June Havens (Diaz) as his hostage/partner. Roy's duty is to protect a new perpetual energy source, along with its genius inventor, geeky Simon Feck (Paul Dano), but someone has set him up. Now, the duo have menacing CIA agents (Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis) on their trail, as well as a nefarious arms dealer (Jordi Molla). Dodging a continuous barrage of bullets, Roy hauls drugged and disoriented June along for the ride until she decides teaming up with him on this dangerous dash is far more fun than her ordinary life as a car restorer. Director James Mangold concentrates more on the fast-paced comedic action than the narrative connective tissue in this fragmented espionage tale that is sometimes quite incomprehensible, but Knight and Day is still exhilarating escapist fun. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “Wilder Knights and Crazier Days” stunts featurette (13 min.), a “Knight and ‘Someday'” segment on the music video featuring the Black Eyed Peas and star Tom Cruise (9 min.), two viral video segments (3 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are a “Boston Days and Spanish Knights” location featurette (8 min.), production segments on the story (4 min.) and scope of the film (3 min.), bonus DVD and digital copies of the film, and the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a decent extras package for an entertaining film.] (S. Granger)