Box office Knight and Day grossed $76.4 million in the
United States and
Canada and $185.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $261.9 million. This was much less than the film
Toy Story 3, which earned $13 million at the box office on the same day. It was the lowest-grossing opening day for Cruise in a leading role since his performance in the 1992 film
Far and Away. Roger Friedman noted for
Hollywood News, "Bad reviews didn't help. 'K&D' has registered only 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. Even those reviews counted as positive weren't so good. They were stretching."; Nicole Sperling of
Entertainment Weekly noted, "audiences just aren't showing up the way Fox might have hoped"; and Ben Fritz of
Los Angeles Times called the film's debut a "soft" opening, and commented, "It wasn't a good first day or night at the box office for 'Knight and Day.'" During the same period that revenues dropped for
Knight and Day, ticket sales for
Toy Story only fell by three percent,
The Karate Kid dropped by six percent; while other films increased revenues at the same time, including,
Shrek Forever After,
Sex and the City 2,
Get Him to the Greek,
Killers, and
Robin Hood. In its first weekend,
Knight and Day was paired up against
Grown Ups, a comedy film starring
Adam Sandler,
Kevin James,
Chris Rock,
David Spade and
Rob Schneider. The Friday of its first weekend after release,
Knight and Day took third place at the box office, behind both
Grown Ups and
Toy Story 3. The film brought in a total of $6.4 million on its third day of release.
Critical response On
Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 51% based on 229 reviews and an average rating of 5.60/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It's pure formula, but thanks to its breezy pace and a pair of charming performances from Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz,
Knight and Day offers some agreeably middle-of-the-road summer action." On
Metacritic, the film has a score of 46 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Justin Chang of
Variety characterized the film as "a high-energy, low-impact caper-comedy that labors to bring a measure of wit, romance and glamour to an overworked spy-thriller template". Kirk Honeycutt of
The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Bottom Line: Logic and plausibility take a holiday in this nonstop actioner that counts on stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz to sell the nonsense." Honeycutt criticized the writing, "the script is too lazy to develop any of its characters – and that includes the leads", and commented, "laziness permeates the film from the inexplicable escapes to the neglected romance". Michael Phillips of the
Chicago Tribune criticized the script, the direction, cinematography, set pieces, and action sequences. Phillips concluded, calling it "A 21st Century
Charade pumped up on all the wrong steroids, 'Knight and Day' may well suffice for audiences desperate for the bankable paradox known as the predictable surprise, and willing to overlook a galumphing mediocrity in order to concentrate on matters of dentistry."
Emanuel Levy was critical of the film's writing, calling it a "mindless flick"; he noted, "The story moves at a breakneck speed, as if to conceal the incongruities in the storytelling." Levy gave the film a grade of "C", and commented, "Preposterously plotted, the saga is dominated by long, energetic, uneven action sequences, but it lacks any logic and pays minimal attention to characterization. Repetitious in structure, and with humor that more often than not misses the mark, 'Knight and Day' is characterized by nihilistic violence and amoral tone, which wouldn't have mattered had the movie been witty or fun to watch." Simon Abrams of
Slant Magazine gave the film a rating of two stars out of four, and commented of the film's director and writer, "Clearly O'Neill and Mangold are trying to give viewers what producers would undoubtedly like to sell as 'something for everybody,' but there's no consistency to the thing and no chemistry whatsoever between Cruise and Diaz, making the alternating tug-of-war between girly and manly elements of the film seem extraordinarily forced." Rene Rodriguez of
The Miami Herald wrote that there was "no chemistry between Cruise and Diaz", and commented regarding Cruise's acting, "Tom Cruise spends much of 'Knight and Day' looking as if he's waiting for someone to pour casting mold over his head to make an action figure." Peter Howell in the
Toronto Star commented, "There is supposed to be romance in
Knight and Day — and Diaz is up for it — but Cruise still looks as if he's taken charisma lessons from Al Gore."
Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum gave
Knight and Day a grade of "C+", and compared it to the 2010 film
Killers starring
Katherine Heigl and
Ashton Kutcher, "The producers assume that audience interest in movie stars is bigger than audience interest in characters. The conclusion is overdetermined, since Roy and June are such flimsy constructions. ... At least they're not Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher in Killers." Colin Covert of
Star Tribune made a similar comparison, "The film looks unambitious, like a remake of 'Killers,' the Ashton Kutcher-Katherine Heigl guns-and-giggles toss-off everyone has already forgotten, but with bigger stunts and more star wattage." In a review for
The Huffington Post, critic Marshall Fine observed, "the movie bubbles happily for almost an hour before it flags". Robert Bell of
Exclaim! wrote of the script, "Sure, things slow down a bit around the midway point, making it clear that there is very little going on here aside from cheesy escapist fantasy, but things quickly pick up again, engaging us in the moment of a movie that knows exactly what mainstream trash cinema should be." In a review for the
Orlando Sentinel, critic Roger Moore commented, "The blase plot devices (a gadget, the nerdy guy who invented it), the bland villains, the too-fast dash through exotic locales, don't matter so long as Cruise and Diaz click and spark their scenes – chases and embraces – to life. And Cruise, hurling himself at this as if his Mission: Impossible future and indeed his whole career depended on it, makes sure they do."
The Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern commented, "'Knight and Day' woke me up to just how awful some summer entertainments have become. It isn't that the film is harmful, except to moviegoers' wallets and movie lovers' morale, but that it is truly phenomenal for the purity of its incoherence." Writing for the
Chicago Sun-Times,
Roger Ebert rated the movie 3 stars out of 4 and wrote, "'Knight and Day' aspires to the light charm of a romantic action comedy like 'Charade' or 'Romancing the Stone,' but would come closer if it dialed down the relentless action. The romance part goes without saying after a
Meet Cute contrived in an airport, and the comedy seems to generate naturally between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. But why do so many summer movies find it obligatory to inflict us with CGI overkill? I'd sorta rather see Diaz and Cruise in action scenes on a human scale, rather than have it rubbed in that for long stretches, they're essentially replaced by animation." Ty Burr of
The Boston Globe stated, "The movie's a piece of high-octane summer piffle: stylish, funny, brainless without being too obnoxious about it, and Cruise is its manic animating principle." Writing for the
Associated Press, Christy Lemire commented, "Cruise's presence also helps keep things light, breezy and watchable when the action – and the story itself – spin ridiculously out of control." Bill Goodykoontz of
The Arizona Republic observed, "Mangold, working from a script by Patrick O'Neill, accelerates events in a way that is either a perfect representation of how current action films are made or a demonstration of everything that's wrong with movies today. Maybe it's both."
CNN's Tom Charity commented, "there's a creeping anxiety about this project, a tendency to over-compensate that speaks to underlying inadequacies." ==See also==