TRAILER: Spy caper is lacking Cruise control

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz have starred in some of the most financially-successful and critically-acclaimed films of the past 25 years, collecting numerous awards for their efforts.

Yet put these two Hollywood superstars in the same camera shot and the results are lacklustre to say the least.

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Their first collaboration, Vanilla Sky, an English language remake of the Spanish thriller Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), was confusing, illogical and uninvolving, and lacked the style and intelligence of the original film.

Now these two talented actors reunite for a fast-paced action comedy that has lots of crash and bang, but almost no emotional wallop.

There is a seed of a good idea in Patrick O’Neill’s film, but the actor-turned-writer doesn’t yet have the experience to knit together the comedy and action elements into a fluid and coherent narrative.

Screen chemistry between the leads never catches fire, even when entire buildings are exploding around them.

June Havens (Diaz) is an unassuming Midwestern gal, who is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Boarding a flight bound for Boston, June is unexpectedly caught in the crossfire of a mid-air shoot-out between paranoid government agent Roy Miller (Cruise) and gun-toting assassins.

“I shot the first pilot, he shot the second... it’s just one of those things,” smirks Roy nervously.

June wakes the next morning, in her bed, believing that her high-altitude adventure was nothing more than a bad dream, only for Miller to abduct her from a diner in front of would-be suitor Rodney (Blucas).

The young woman is now marked for death and must quickly learn the tricks of the spy trade to stay alive and avoid an early grave at the hands of Antonio (Molla) and his henchmen.

Meanwhile, CIA director Isabel George (Davis) and Agent Fitzgerald (Sarsgaard) try to persuade June that Roy is a rogue spy who must be stopped before he hands a newly-discovered perpetual energy source to US enemies.

The film gallops across the globe from Boston to Salzburg and finally to Seville for a spectacular finale during a bull run.

Cruise limbers up for the physical demands of Mission: Impossible IV, scheduled for release next summer, with a series of bruising stunt sequences, and Diaz gets battered, too, behind the wheel of a car in the centrepiece chase.

However, it’s hard to muster concern about Roy and June when the film pays such scant attention to character development.

The twist is heavily signposted and the lead stars seem to be bulletproof when it matters, emerging from the melee virtually unscathed when lesser mortals would be riddled with bullets and bound for the mortuary slab.