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Salt
2/5 Stars
Starring Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Directed by Phillip Noyce.
Having a woman as the lead of an action movie is a good idea because it puts a different spin on a genre that is usually male centric. Want proof? Aliens is one of the greatest action movies ever made and it has a woman as the lead. Angelina Jolie is a capable actress and more importantly a very capable action movie actress. Jolie puts in solid work in her new movie Salt, but it never reaches another level. Guy, girl, Wookie, or a Muppet, it wouldn’t matter what sex the main character was: the script simply isn’t up to snuff.
One fine day at the CIA, a Russian defector (Daniel Olbrychski) walks in and takes a giant exposition dump on the interrogation desk of agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie). He says that at the height of the cold war, children in Russia were trained as sleeper agents to replace American kids and integrate themselves into U.S. military work, all in preparation for “Day X,” a date when Russian sleeper agents across America would orchestrate attacks. Olbrychski actually does a fine job turning what could have been a dull opening into something engrossing. Then he reveals that one sleeper agent, Evelyn Salt, is going to perform an assassination. Salt is distressed by this unbelievable revelation and immediately goes on the run, protesting that she has to save her husband (August Diehl), who may be targeted for extermination. She is pursued by her friend Ted (Liev Schreiber), who wants to take her in alive, and a ruthless agent, Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who isn’t exactly picky about how she’s stopped.
Continuing his parade of supporting roles as a burly dude, Schreiber gets to chew out a few hard boiled bits of dialogue. When he’s expressing disbelief about the Russian sleeper plot, his co-worker asks, “Don’t you believe in moles?” Schreiber growls with relish, “I believe in moles, I just don’t believe in the boogie–man.” His character changes at the end and at least Schrieber knows how to sell his character’s actions. Once again trapped in minor role in a lame movie is Ejiofor, a decent actor who deserves better (for better see his heavies in Serenity or Children of Men). Jolie can be very humanizing and sympathetic, and various flashbacks to when she was imprisoned are well acted. That gets tossed out the window around when she goes from blonde cutie to black–haired noir chick. Suddenly, she becomes a silent, dull Terminator.
There is kind of a cool twist halfway through that the ads haven’t managed to completely ruin. Much like Jolie’s character in Wanted, her actions don’t make a lick of sense by the end, with little to no explanation. Did she cause all this wanton destruction and mayhem because she was slightly miffed? Is it really plausible that she can render unconscious literally dozens of U.S. Federal agents with maybe a single punch or a cool looking jump–off–the–wall kick? It all devolves into noise, too many twists, and general silliness. One Russian sleeper agent is in the movie for about three minutes before he blows himself to kingdom come for no discernible reason whatsoever. Explosions are neat; plot logic is better.
The highly illogical twists get more extravagant near the end. There’s one moment when Jolie is made up to look like a man. It looks borderline ridiculous. Actually, scratch that, it is ridiculous because the make–up job is too good to be plausible for somebody to slap together on the fly. At least the masks in Mission:Impossible are intentionally goofy. Also, Angelina Jolie makes for a very a weird looking dude.
The action sequences get a little tired as the movie goes on, but there is one extended chase sequence near the start that works like total gangbusters. The chase basically begins back at the Feds’ office, with Salt inventively escaping, but then it becomes a foot chase, then a car chase as Jolie jumps onto the top of trucks on a speeding freeway, until eventually she commandeers a motorcycle for a chase. It’s just wacky enough to be entertaining, but somewhat plausible as Jolie jumps from truck to truck. She (or at least her stunt double) made it look like it hurt. Unfortunately, the movie uses up all of its action mojo early. The best it can do later is have Jolie walk away in slow motion from a few fireballs. At least the music by James Newton Howard is a classical bombastic action scoring which almost makes the action seem better. But, in a movie being sold as an action romp, it doesn’t live up to anything you can see in either Inception or Predators.
In the end, the unbelievable twists pile on top of each other. As good as the actors are, they doesn’t make Salt worth your time. In fact, the good points of the film, like the opening 30 minutes, point out its deficiencies. It doesn’t seem much more than a Bourne knock–off with a few throwbacks to old–school Cold War paranoia. Salt needed more spice.
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