Nuit et jour

Réalisé de manière compétente mais impersonnelle, le film peine à trouver son rythme. Ne partageant aucune chimie, Cameron Diaz et Tom Cruise jouent sur le pilote automatique.

Il s'agit d'un gros film d'action sans logique ni cohérence qui cherche seulement à faire passer un bon moment dans une salle climatisée où la boisson gazeuse et le pop-corn dégoulinant de beurre coulent à flot. La production sera donc forcément collante et débile, musclée et comique, réalisé avec soin et bénéficiant d'une distribution alléchante.

Si la première demi-heure s'avère prometteuse grâce au charme pétillant de Diaz, aux cascades agiles de Cruise et à la réalisation énergique quoique impersonnelle de Mangold, bien des éléments auront tôt fait d'assommer le spectateur.

The premise is tired, the tone doesn't exactly work, and I honestly still have no idea why it's called Knight and Day. Yet you've got to give this movie at least some credit. It tries, and it tries hard. Tasked with making something fresh and original out of an idea that ran out of gas in 2005, it throws everything it can at the wall and tries to make it stick. Most of it doesn't, but maybe that doesn't matter when you have Tom Cruise.

It's a quintessential movie hybrid: a romantic thriller with exciting high-speed chases, brisk comedy and exotic scenery. And, perhaps best of all, stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz make a surprisingly charming couple.

As those credits indicate, Mangold also works well with actors, and he and Cruise completely understand the old-fashioned movie star charm necessary to animate top-drawer secret agent Roy Miller, someone who does everything better when he's wearing sunglasses.

So what is missing? Oh, I don't know - wit, fun, sexual tension, risk, originality. Maybe one or two other things. But will anyone notice? It is just possible that Knight and Day will earn some admiration because it is not a sequel or a spinoff and employs two stars who refuse to act like or resemble teenagers.

Some may call the Pavlovian responses to Grown Ups laughter. But what if it is only meaningless noise generated by mindless activity on a screen as time is killed and popcorn munched?

Et propose un film somme toute divertissant, pour lequel il est toutefois requis de laisser son cerveau au vestiaire. Knight and Day fait en effet partie de ces films qu'on oublie sitôt la porte de sortie franchie. Mais à partir du moment où l'on accepte d'entrer dans le jeu, on peut aisément y trouver son plaisir.