The Curse of the Trend

So I just watched Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, directed by James Mangold. The film itself was not A material but I could give it a solid C or B-. The action within tied well with the comedy and the two leads, Cruise and Diaz, worked well with each other and the connection was believable. This is definitely something that I could watch again and be as entertained as the first time, in fact the only problem I really had with the film was bad timing.
Let me explain, remember about thirteen years ago when the volcano trend was hot. Films like Dante's Peak and Volcano were produced back to back, or how about when Armageddon and it's mate Deep Impact reminded the world of the impending asteroid doom. This is what I like to call the curse of the trend, when movies that are pretty much the same are released back to back. This usually causes both movies to be forgotten almost as soon as it's released to DVD and very often causes one film to cheapen the other. In Knight and Day's case the Ashton Kutcher bomb The Killers was released almost the same month as Knight and Day and by the time Knight and Day hit the screen and the plot was no longer original, no thus no longer stood a chance to make any kind of waves in popular culture. The curse combined with the new Tom Cruise phobia that most audiences have and outright failure was spelled for the film.
My advise to you, the audience, forget the tabloid crap about Tom Cruise. You don't have to be an actors bff to enjoy their movies, Val Kilmer is proof enough of that, and use common sense when wanting to see movies liked together in the Curse of the Trend. If there are two movies out with pretty much the same plot line then send it to the actors in the film. If you have to choose from Tom Cruise, who has several good movies, and Ashton Kutcher, who never has had a good movie ever, then the choice should be pretty clear.

Just my opinion

J.