The Movie
Remember the ads for Knight and Day that showed little more than stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz riding a motorcycle and shooting guns? Turns out that's because that pretty much sums up the general "plot" of this movie, which involves a super-duper secret agent who tricks an innocent civilian into helping him on his latest mission. That puts her in harm's way too, so they travel to a bunch of scenic locations and have a lot of chases, knife fights and shootouts, sometimes in swimsuits.
Both characters are bigger than life, he a toothy do-anything-without-breaking-a-sweat spy, she the pretty (by some standards I suppose), buff-bod chick who restores classic cars. As a result, it's hard for the audience to have any genuine sympathy for either of them, which makes the third act in particular fall rather flat.
Also read Lexi Feinberg's review of Knight and Day anytime, day or night.
The Picture
A recent, big-budget action picture such as Knight and Day should make for a better-looking Blu-ray, frankly. There is a weird mushiness to out-of-focus backgrounds and foreground objects, but my main issue with this 2.4:1 transfer is the lack of sharp detail. My theory is that vanity has taken hold and the aging Cruise and Cameron are self-conscious about their many close-ups, and so the movie was either shot soft, or filters were used, or perhaps it was even modified in post-production to minimize the appearance of their wrinkles. Blacks also vary, sometimes surrendering ample shadow detail, other times definitely not.
The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundfield however is consistently excellent, credibly establishing different environments but also making the most of the many setpieces such as a jumbo jet crash, an early car chase, gun battles, explosions and more. There are also terrific smaller moments as when we're riding inside a bus and we can hear Tom walking across the roof above us.
The Extras
"Knight and 'Someday' featuring Tom Cruise and The Black Eyed Peas" is surely one of the worst "special features" I have ever seen, and I go back to the VHS days. In this unstructured nine-minute mess, Tom meets up with The Peas backstage so that he can ramble about how wonderful they are, and they about him, and we can later watch them hugging and hanging out and telling the live audience to go see Knight and Day. Apparently, few of the revelers heeded this mandate. The sub-text of this featurette is that people will watch gladly anything with Tom Cruise in it.
Not so.
There are two brief, unfunny viral videos, and a pair of slick, extended trailers intercut with giddy soundbites from the stars. There's also a 12-and-a-half-minute look behind the scenes, and an eight-minute overview of the locations, but these interviews become repetitious rather quickly. All of these extras are in HD. The disc also supports BD-Live, with Fox's imdb.com-powered Live Lookup.
Disc Two is a DVD of the movie, with a sampling of these same extras, while Disc Three carries a Digital Copy for iTunes and Windows Media.
Final Thoughts
And did I mention what a ridiculous title "Knight and Day" is? It tells us nothing about the movie and although we eventually find out who the Knight is, Day remains a mystery, although not the sort that leaves us the least bit curious. Or entertained. If you'd like to continue overinflating the egos of these two former box office draws, then by all means buy/rent this Blu-ray.
Product Details
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