March may come in like a lion, but summer comes in like "Knight and Day," an utterly predictable action movie that opens today, with impossible things becoming everyday events. Cameron Diaz, who may be the first Kansas-based heroine since Judy Garland, runs an auto repair shop in Wichita and is restoring her father's treasured GTO as a wedding gift for her sister. She's on her way to the wedding (the car remains in Wichita; it will not fit in the overhead compartment) and has many problems getting on the plane. Tom Cruise intercedes, fiddling with her luggage, and she boards. Only a handful of other passengers are present, and Cruise is in the next seat. Surprise!
Shortly after takeoff, Cruise calmly kills everyone else on the plane, including the pilots, with his bare hands, and then shows he has the skill to land the plane in a cornfield.
Next thing we know, Diaz wakes up in her sister's house, makeup intact, ready for the wedding. And that's in just the first 20 minutes or so.
From there on, Cruise and Diaz are on a world-wide tour to Switzerland, Vienna and other romantic places, always with freshly cleaned and pressed clothes, while Cruise, who can do anything instantly and remain charming all the time, protects a super energy source from all the bad guys, a group that may or may not include the CIA, the FBI and many other alphabetical agencies from nations too numerous to mention.
James Mangold, who directed the first-rate "3:10 to Yuma" remake in 2007, keeps the action taking curves and hills like an out-of-control roller-coaster, and there's good work from Viola Davis and Peter Sarsgaard as police types, and from Paul Dano as the inventor of the device.
"Knight and Day" is close to being a comic book, but it's fast-moving and generally exciting enough to leap over the large and frequent plot holes. A fine summer movie; just make sure the theater is properly air-conditioned.
"Knight and Day" opens today at several theaters.
–Joe