Get The Scoop About, The Movie Salt!
Salt resurrects Russians as a heartless and wickedly malevolent enemy to be combated by no less than the astonishingly aerobic Angelina Jolie. She engages in 007-esque feats of kicking, hitting, jumping and strangling. It’s a thriller. This is fantasy spy action worth watching if you enjoy a whomped-up jolt to your endocrine system.
It’s been rumored that Ms. Jolie was offered a role as a “Bond girl” but turned it down because she deemed herself more suited to play Ian Flemming’s male character rather than a mere curvy bauble. “Salt” proves that her own assessment of her abilities was right on target. She makes quite a good “spy” and exercises all the concomitant perks of whirling action-packed stunts. She cultivates a heroic sensibility that’s hard to resist but, overall, the movie hangs together less well dramatically than visually.
If you’re interested in watching Ms. Jolie’s pout-perfect lips and well-honed physique perform like oiled machinery, this is your chance to bask in her beauty. Layer the lushness of her presence with some CIA espionage and you’re in for non-stop action-packed thrills. However, if you’re idea of great movie going is “Last Year at Marienbad,” well, skip it.
The script posits a rather far-fetched scenario of Russian children taken to Siberia and trained to speak flawless American English so they can become Next-Generation Super Spies. What ensues is the usual thriller mayhem of assassinations, impending missile launches and top-secret tropes of intrigue and espionage — in New Jersey no less. It’s all fun and intriguing stuff, if more than a bit icy. Nothing personal, so to speak.
The sheer power of Ms. Jolie’s character will keep her at a distance. You can look but you most certainly would have no business touching. This is “hands-off” spy hunkiness with an occasional whiff of almost humorous Bondish leitmotifs, including champagne, poetry, bonbons and the obligatory friskiness set inside an agency library. The villains and heroes are all mesmerizing and we’re given our money’s worth. In fact, this almost seems as if it’s a mere introductory prelude to what might prove to be an ongoing migratory flight of sequels.
Some of the other usual baggage of the spy genre is present in a rather nonchalant way — marriages crumbling and father-son domesticity that is less than sanguine. But it’s merely a backdrop for the heavy machinery of world-changing politics. Interestingly, former president Ronald Regan is played out as a thoroughly ruthless fellow who is both crass and calculating. He’s infatuated by the movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” and the movie within the movie plays out with interesting ramifications.
Since this is the quintessential spy-thriller, it would hardly due to give away more of the plot. Suffice to say, there are plenty of grumpy villains, horn-rimmed intellects and luscious babes to make the whole adventure worth the ride. But don’t expect your world to be re-tuned and high notes to be hit. It’s all fun. A bit of a romp, as it were. Just settle in, buy some popcorn and watch fantasy unfold. In that regard “Salt” is well worth the price of admission
Tags: Angelina Jolie, Ian Flemming, movie, Movies, Russian, salt
