Red & Knight & Day

Rating: 7/10 (8 January 2011)

Red and Knight & Day I decided to review these two films on my facebook reviews together as they are in some ways comparable.
In the first, Knight & Day, Cameron Diaz, Day, is returning home for her sisters wedding when she stumbles upon Tom Cruise, Knight, a CIA agent who having been set up as a patsy is forced to go undercover and on the run. Through a set of unbelievable circumstances the two embark on a farcical roller-coaster ride of espionage and death defying feats.
In Red, Bruce Willis is a retired CIA agent who having pressed the wrong switches upset someone lurking in the shadows. Forced out of hiding he joins up with fellow CIA retirees John Malkovitz, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren. Together they too embark on a farcical roller-coaster ride of espionage and death defying feats.
This however is where the two films part company.
When Cruise and Diaz appeared on Top Gear, (UK) Jeremy Clarkson said of the two Hollywood actors "this is where humans will be in 100 years when evolution has reached perfection". Sadly I disagree. What comes out from this film that you do not have in Red is that very Hollywood obsession with appearance. The need to have endless cosmetic surgery, reconstructive dental work and lifts in your shoes. Peel away the make up, remove the implants and fake faces and what you have is very normal looking people. This is relevant to the cause as Knight & Day seems lost where as Red knows its own identity. Action packed and full of CGI and exploding things, stunts and gun battles both films are fun to behold. Cruise leaps from moving vehicles and hand to hand combat with sharks, it is the consummate Tom Cruise film, but in the same breath it's not an action film. It has the underlying feeling that it's a comedy action. A problem arises however, because it's not funny. The key element in comedy is humour and in Knight & Day there is at no point a moment when you laugh. It is then simply a film of no substance, same old same old, which rides on the back of America's, and now the world's, obsession with 'beautiful people looking beautiful'. The problem with beautiful people sitting around looking beautiful is that nothing ever gets done. God made most people either ugly or normal looking so we could do things slightly more important than walk up and down a catwalk. And this brings us to Red.
In Red, the lead characters are all old, wrinkled and gray. There's not cosmetically enhanced beautiful people leaping from rooftops but normal people undertaking equally improbable things as in Knight & Day with the exception that they can all act far better than Cruise or Diaz. There is as much action packed exploding CGI things and despite their age none of the cast look out of place or struggle to be convincing. Red mercifully never takes itself too serious but with tongue in cheek catapults the ridiculous characters into the impossible with full vigour and there is more humour to boot.
I enjoyed both films, both are best described as 'cerebrally relaxing' and would give them each 7/10 for entertainment value, the downside is that one ends with the overwhelming feeling that a sequel will be following along behind and it's not actually the one you want to see more of.
Red is Good Fun 7/10