‘I’m the guy!’ smirks madcap assassin Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) to mousey June Havens (Cameron Diaz) as he kidnaps her at gunpoint from a Boston cafe. Sadly, on the evidence of James Mangold’s pumped-up spy thriller, Cruise has little to be so cocky about – the toothy smile may be intact, but this mix of fake CGI and even faker romance never lets either star shine.

Blandly reprising his Ethan Hunt persona in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Cruise plays Miller, a seemingly indestructible spy who has a chance encounter at a Kansas airport with the dowdy Havens. Taking her off-track from her sister’s wedding, the dental, mental twosome battle against various anonymous baddies, including a slumming Peter Sarsgaard, who continually narrows his eyes and looks off-screen as if searching for a face-saving exit.

Knight and Day reputedly went through more rewrites than Snow White had dwarves, and the result shows little in the way of a unifying purpose; Diaz flusters while Cruise dons shades and bloodlessly shoots down extras in a poor imitation of Doug Liman’s superior Mr & Mrs Smith.
General release from Fri 6 Aug.