Salt (2010)

While I don't actively avoid Angelina Jolie's movies she is not an actor that I have ever been particularly fond of.  I think a lot of it has to do with the fact she falls more into the "celebrity" category than the performer one.  There are a lot of actors who do both - her former spouse, Brad Pitt, for instance, has taken on a lot of challenging roles despite the fact that I dismissed him as just a hollow pretty boy when he first came on the scene.  When I see a celebrity constantly making the news for something other than their acting it tips me off that there is a need for attention to distract from a lack of any real talent.  In most movies I have seen Jolie in my feelings have been justified.

I would say they pretty much are with Salt as well, even if the movie itself isn't half bad.  This was never something I was too interested in seeing when it came out as it seemed to be like any number of rote Hollywood action films being pushed out at the time with a top name to try to sell an otherwise mediocre product.  By and large that is what we have here, albeit with some great stunt work.

Evelyn Salt (Jolie) is a CIA agent who at one point was arrested in North Korea for spying, but whose entomologist boyfriend Michael (August Diehl) was able to get her out.  A few years later they are married and living a happy life when a supposed Russian defector named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) arrives with a wild claim: Evelyn is a sleeper agent imbedded as a child during the Cold War, and she is being activated to kill the Russian president (Olek Krupa).  Her boss Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) does not believe it, but internal affairs agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) quickly begins an investigation.

Afraid that her husband may be in danger, Salt escapes from the building where she works, and arrives home to find him missing.  She then moves forward to complete the mission that Orlov mentioned and becomes wanted for the Russian president's assassination.  Because she is a U.S. intelligence agent it also brings the two countries to the brink of war, which it appears was Orlov's plan all along, but Salt's actual goals may be different than what anyone has set for her.

The best thing about this is the stunt work, particularly a chase that sees Jolie jumping onto moving vehicles on a freeway.  From what I understand she did a lot of that herself, and even if she did only part it's still pretty impressive.  I went into this thinking it was going to be overloaded with CGI, but it remained largely grounded in old-fashioned movie making.

Unfortunately, the plot is old fashioned as well.  Not to give too much away, but it is largely the ending of No Way Out repeated over and over again.  Thankfully the movie is rather short, so it doesn't get as annoying as it could be otherwise, but it does get to the point where it is hard to suspend disbelief.  By the end of the movie it certainly feels like there are more Russian agents operating in the CIA than actual CIA.  I'm also quite sure that if the President needs to launch our missiles it doesn't go at the same pace as uploading a video to YouTube.  It seems like there was a lot of hope that this was to be an upcoming franchise for Jolie, since the ending leaves things wide open for a sequel.  

The movie really wants to try to capture the excitement of Cold War spy movies, but has to go through so many twists and turns to deal with the fact that this was made halfway into Obama's first term (including going the Hollywood route of making up a President).  The idea of rogue KGB agents trying to take over the world is somehow even more stale than the idea of radical IRA splinter groups doing the same, but too many movies tend to go for the same old bad guys.  They keep trying to feed us the same old tired celebrities as well, and I still see nothing here that tells me why my opinion of Jolie should change.  While she does a serviceable job there is nothing engaging about her or the character, and it's no wonder nothing else was heard of Evelyn Salt after this one film.

Salt (2010)

Time: 100 minutes

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski

Director: Phillip Noyce