Review: Knight & Day vs. The Last Airbender

Andhon mein kaana raja

Last Friday, was a day marked by the release of two long awaited Hollywood movies Knight and Day and The last Airbender.

 And for the movie lovers of the world like me, both seemed to be very promising. Knight and day because of its cast: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, and The Last Airbender because of its director Mr. M. Night Shyamalan. So you can imagine how my heart broke when the movies (yes both of them!) did not fare well according to expectations.

Though if you must chose one, my vote is cast for Knight and Day. Why…? Well it really just boils down to the rudimentary law of movie watching that is that “Weak story with Great actors” is still more watchable than “Great story with Lame actors”. Both the actors in K&D are very talented and good looking, so it becomes a treat to our eyes to watch them together, even though the un-interesting plot makes the movie obvious and slightly boring at times. As saving grace, small comic moments inspire spurts of laughter throughout the story. For those of you who are waiting to watch a steamy kissing scene get interrupted by an air raid on the lovers then this, my friends, is the movie for you! The director James Mangold seemed to want to please one and all by making it a romance/action/comedy flick.  Hence “Genre-wise” this movie would fall in no man’s land.     

On the other hand The Last Airbender could have been a blockbuster movie with its new concept   and storyline and 3 dimensional effects. Notice the “could”.  Though one would imagine it to be rather difficult to go wrong in a story that has adventure as well as action as well as fantasy, alas the movie has failed. I request my readers to refer, again, to the rudimentary law of movie watching:  “Weak story with Great actors” is still more watchable than “Great story with Lame actors”. Newbie Noah Ringer and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire Fame) and other not exceptionally distinguished actors have fallen short of acting skills at least for this one. And I would not like to say much about the lose direction by Mr. M. Night Shyamalan, except perhaps the fact that I am thoroughly disappointed. It claims to be 3-D movie, but no more than a minute in the movie was actually in 3-D. Even the action sequences in the movie were not at all captivating, which otherwise should have been amazingly thrilling with the characters having the ability to bend the elements of nature. You can easily think of your other important errands at hand, while watching even the climax of the movie.

On the other hand, the climax of Knight and Day is quite engaging with a car-bike chase sequence etc. the typical thrills of any Hollywood action flick. Despite the endless possibilities that Airbender could have had it is K&D that emerges the clear winner when it comes to action sequences. Therefore, if you are a movie buff and cannot live without watching a new movie every week, Kinght and Day, in my opinion, is the one to go to this time; or else you can also let pass both the movies without watching them in the theatre and wait for their DVD releases.