Mission: Implausible.

A movie built around its stunts. Ergo, if the audience was purely stuntpeople, KNIGHT AND DAY is awesome!

But we’re just regular little cucumbers out here in the fluttering dark. As much as it thrills me to see a car flip over and miss Tom Cruise’s head by inches (even though thrills would have magnified had it connected), I’d rather see a story structured around a… well, a story.

Meet Cute between Spy (Tom Cruise) and Mandrill (Cameron Diaz) onboard a plane, Mandrill completely unaware Spy is a spy; more concerned with fluffing out her flat chest to entice Spy like a baboon in estrus. At Meet Cute, already she’s deep intimate, “When my father died…” Whoa! Slow down there, Ms. High Maintenance! How about a handjob first?

Chase movie ensues with Mandrill batting her eyelids, being preciously incompetent and following Spy around globe obediently, oft-times unconsciously, yet always in heat. Spy is omniscient, cannot die, has unlimited ammo, and a body carved from 500 situps a day, pec implants and the power of prayer. Mandrill’s misshapen body attributed to working out incorrectly, Botox and CGI painting, still retaining the awesomely flat chest she mistakenly thinks is alluring to the male of the species.

McGuffin is a perpetual power source battery known as Zephyr, created by Paul Dano (doppelganger for Sam Huntington), resident twitchy ubergeek, more helpless than Mandrill, yet better looking even with scraggly Shaggy beard and tendency to dribble.

Spy protects Ubergeek and Mandrill while being pursued by Peter Sarsgaard with eyes deader than a Terminator.

Stunt coordinator overdoses on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, steals all their gags. Writer Patrick O’Neill saw MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – stole story. Director James Mangold saw MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, remade it.

Spy suffers the KING KONG Syndrome: tolerates Mandrill continually getting him into hot water and not taking advice, because blondes of any species just do it for him.

FBI pursuers tell Mandrill that Spy’s training leached any “loving” out of his persona, proven by fact that his parents think him dead from a young age – but when she discovers his PMD constantly monitoring his parents’ home via spy satellite, heart melts. On the other hand, Spy sees in her someone who loves her parents the way he never could. And prospective handjobs.

I get it now: his name’s not Knight and her name’s not Day. What was the question again?

END