Salt: Movie Review
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Page 1 of 2 Sony / 100 Minutes / 2010 / Rated PG-13 / In Theatres Now
Far be it from me to begrudge an actor or actress the chance at making literal ass-tons of money from something that they have little or no faith in, but I hold some people to a higher standard. Do I expect Nic Cage to come out with his annual crap-tastic adventure in overacting in order to pay off his creditors and also soften my frontal lobe like an ice-pick lobotomy? You’re damned right I do; every damned summer. Do I count the days on my calendar until Michael Bay’s annual explody-tacular mis-adventure in plot-device abuse and steadfast ignorance of the words ‘continuity’ and ‘subtlety’? Again, yes, just like I look forward to my annual visit to the dentist. At some point one would expect that I would become numb to this annual cavalcade of skull-fuckery, like a soulless hollow-eyed Ginger-kid becomes used to the much-deserved abuse heaped on their soulless head year after year. You would expect this, but you would be mistaken. I, for some reason, still hold random actors and actresses to a higher standard and wallow in sniffling grief when I am all too predictably disappointed by them. I admit, it is often my lofty expectations that make the disappointment in mediocre movie-choices by some actors seem on par with Orson Welles choosing to be a breakdancing cop in Beat Street 2: Electric Boogaloo. In point of fact, Angelina Jolie is one of these random people and this fact made the travesty that is Salt all the more painful to endure.
The premise of the movie is simple enough: “As a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt swore an oath to duty, honor and country. Her loyalty will be tested when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture.” This, along with the tag-line “Who is Salt?”, sets the movie up as a thriller with a ‘figure out the identity of Salt’ angle as its basis of intriguing the audience and holding their interest. Sadly, what ends up happening with this plot-angle is not unlike what happens during a poorly-paced episode of Law & Order. In Law & Order, when a murderer’s identity is revealed 20 minutes in to a 60 minute episode, you’re mind goes “hold on, there’s 40 minutes left here; hark, there’s a plot-twist ahead!!!” Not 20 minutes in to the Salt it becomes readily apparent to everyone in the audience who isn’t already asleep or transfixed by how skinny Jolie has gotten that Evelyn Salt is, in fact, a Soviet-era deep-cover mole. The question then becomes “well I wonder what the end-of-the-movie reveal is going to be that will make the next 80-odd minutes more than just Angelina Jolie wandering around looking so damned sexy?” |
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