Knight and Day *

Director: James Mangold
Cast: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz
Peter Sarsgaard, Jordi Mollà, Viola Davis, Paul Dano
Marc Blucas, Celia Weston, Dale Dye

When thinking of Knight and Day, the word "throwback" might come to mind but it's definitely not the word that best helps describe it.
It reminds us of a throwback because we understand the film wanted to be something in the tradition of The African Queen or Charade; a show for grownups featuring two big movie stars who romance each other while running away from peril.
In execution though the movie feels more like a bad TV pilot, done just to pair Diaz and Cruise (who had been wickedly good together in Vanilla Sky, her more than him, but still there was something there).
This time around the tables are turned and it's Cruise who's in control as he plays Roy Miller, a seductive rogue spy who teams up with unsuspecting ditzy civilian June Havens (Diaz) as he tries to clean his good name from the people who framed him...or so we think.
After meeting "by accident" in an airport, Roy takes a liking to June (some might call it plain old stalking) and spends most of the movie trying to convince her he's a good guy trying to do his best to protect an important weapon designer (Dano in full geeky glory).
She's approached by an FBI agent (Sarsgaard) and his boss (Davis) who tell her, Roy is in fact an agent who lost his mind...
But who to believe?
The film in a way acts like an analogy for Tom Cruise's latter days career. On one side we have Cruise trying to remind us how he's the irresistibly charming movie star we always thought he was, this part is essentially conveyed by Miller, who needs to do not more than flash his million dollar smile and scoff (in that very Tom Cruise way) to get away with anything.
On the other side we have what seems to be the voice of reason in the shape of the FBI who informs us that despite our best knowledge this man is in fact insane. This could very well represent, well, our opinion of what Cruise has been doing for the past seven years; meaning action after action to convince us something's not quite working up there.
So on a very basic level the film is an endurance test of how much Cruise you can take. If you think he's an obnoxious midget you'd be better off watching something else because besides the whole lotta Tom we get, the plot also asks us to push the boundaries of coherence in order to accept what's going onscreen as something remotely real.
There is a recurring gag throughout the film where Roy drugs June, mostly to move locations without her having a panic attack, which are represented visually by a series of mostly blurry snippets that give us an idea of what the hell is going on.
We see Roy hanging upside down, Roy on a plane, Roy on a boat etc...the difference between this and say something like North by Northwest (another example of polar opposites in a cross continent adventure) is that we don't care where June will wake up next, or if she'll even wake up at all.
Deep inside we know everything will turn out well for these two and the movie fails to raise even a second of real excitement, thrills or even fun.
The one thing that remains a mystery throughout the film is what got Sarsgaard and Davis to star in this?

The Box ***

Director: Richard Kelly
Cast: James Marsden, Cameron Diaz, Frank Langella
Celia Weston, James Rebhorn, Sam Oz Stone, Ian Kahn

There's fluorescent green blood running through the theremin intoxicated veins of Richard Kelly's "The Box". Adapted from a short story by Richard Matheson, the movie is a throwback to sci-fi/horror films and TV shows- particularly "The Twilight Zone"-and like said productions sets its stage in the unassuming tranquility of the suburbs.
It's 1976 and Norma and Arthur Lewis (Diaz and Marsden respectively) are woken up one early morning by the doorbell. Norma opens and finds someone has left them a box containing a wooden contraption with a red button on top.
There's also a note that says they will be visited by someone that evening. They go on with their normal work days; Arthur, who works at NASA, learns that he has been dropped from the astronaut program because failed the psychological exam (perhaps an omen of things to come?) while Norma, who's a schoolteacher, is informed that she will no longer get tuition for her son Walter (Stone).
That afternoon they receive the visit of the mysterious Arlington Steward (a never creepier Langella) who explains to them the powers of the box and the button unit they received.
If they push the button they will receive one million dollars, completely tax free, but there's a catch; the minute they push the button someone they don't know will die.
Steward leaves, warning them that they have one day to make up their minds before he comes to retrieve the box.
After debating the matter and becoming overwhelmed by their economic misfortunes, Norma pushes the button.
Steward arrives to retrieve the box and give them their money; soon after, strange events begin to occur and before long the Lewis' are stuck in a labyrinth of deceit, stalkers, nose bleeding zombies, NASA investigations, alien conspiracy theories, NSA secrets and strange behavior from people they thought they knew.
It seems that only half the movie is Matheson's story and the crazier parts are all Kelly. The surprise isn't that such things come out of a person's mind, but that he makes them work as a movie.
In "The Box" Kelly doesn't hide the fact that this is homage in its purest form. The milky cinematography (done in digital video out of a bet of sorts) brings out a fuzzy sort of terror that recalls "Poltergeist" and "The Exorcist", while the strings heavy score (done by members of Arcade Fire) recalls some of Bernard Herrmann's greatest work.
The referential tone might result annoying to viewers who aren't in on the joke as they will probably hate the overacting of Marsden and Diaz.
Those who succumb to the movie will be delighted by the way the actors give in to the cheesiness Kelly comes up with. Forget the fact that they have to wear seventies clothing, the camp factor here lies in their late reactions, overworked lines and the way they still manage to convince us of the romantic backstory their characters share.
Kelly often tries to say too much and the movie sometimes borders complete ridicule, but by the end it really works more like a good film in B-movie disguise.
The most surprising thing about it all is how it achieves multiple readings. It works as a terrifying, postmodernist, existential drama unafraid to mix its Sartre with the Blob. In moments where the world seems to backfire on them it's a revelation to see Norma and Arthur go into discussions of their place in the world in contrast with others.
"Hell is other people seeing you for who you really are" says Norma to her students as she tries to explain existentialist theories. With its recurrent theme of "no exit" the movie flirts with Lynchean themes but unlike the too Freudian auteur, this one isn't afraid to pull out its "boos" out of the cheesiest of places.
"The Box" is also able to become scarily time appropriate given how it forces us to give a second look at the way people act when their survival is threatened.
In a world undergoing such critical economic times, it's difficult to avoid trying to empathize with the decision the Lewis' have to contemplate.
Kelly isn't afraid to ask if moral codes can be suspended or forgotten in the face of adversity. But before we're deep into an intellectual debate, Kelly is already scaring our pants off with a sudden thrill.
"The Box" might very well be the most entertaining movie about the recession made so far.