Release Date – 7/23/10
Evelyn Salt has just been accused of being a Russian spy. She is working for the Central Intelligence Agency and a Russian defector has just come in to reveal secret assassination plans. During his confession, he also points the finger at Salt as being in on the plan. Trying to clear her name, the only option is to run so she won’t be wrongfully imprisoned. Two other CIA agents are on her tail, one believes her and the other not so much. The movie is your typical spy flick. High energy action scenes, very little dialogue, with a couple twists and turns along the way. Its nothing special and didn’t really hold my interest much compared to something from the Bourne series.
Angelina Jolie plays the role of Evelyn Salt. The role was originally given to Tom Cruise but after that fell through it was re-written to fit a woman. I think I would have liked it better with Cruise in the lead but still would have been unimpressed as it really is nothing new for the genre. Jolie has done action before, the most recent being Wanted, so its not like she didn’t fit well in the role. She was fine, there just wasn’t much actual acting to be done. It was pretty much one action scene after another. Jolie jumping off of bridges, dodging bullets, getting into fights. It wasn’t so bad but I would much rather see in her dramas as she is a pretty damn good actress. Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor played the agents on her ass the entire time. They were the positive and negative, the polar opposites when judging Salt. They worked well together but again, not much acting had to be done in between action scenes.
About an hour into the movie, we get a twist. But even the most casual movie go-er will know that’s way too early to think everything is set in stone. You can see all the plot twists coming a mile away. In fact, I threw out a blind guess in the beginning and I ended up being correct. So nothing really shocked me as the plot unfolded. Director Phillip Noyce has done movies like Clear & Present Danger and Patriot Games so political thrillers involving the CIA are not unknown to him. Maybe he’s just done it all CIA-wise already. Its not as ridiculous as an over the top summer popcorn action flick but its also not very memorable as a spy thriller either.
IMDB – 6.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 56%
Movie Wiseguys – 5/10
