OK, let's clear the air, get it out of the way and then forget it was ever mentioned. Right?
Angelina Jolie isn't worth her Salt.
There. It's done and we don't need to mention it again.
I had to get out of the house this afternoon and, picking from the movies available at the newest theater in the area (which I hadn't been to as yet), I chose the 2:10 showing of SALT. As I suspected, it was a female version of the Jason Bourne movies.
SPOILER ALERT!
The premise doesn't exactly hold together here. Does anyone still believe there are late Soviet-era sleeper agents just waiting for the right moment to start WWIII so Russia can rise from the ashes and dominate the world?
For the other major complaint about the movie: Salt takes as many or more physical risks as Bourne but gets injured less seriously and recovers more quickly. Although the way she controls the police car during the chase/escape is quite clever. I never saw THAT bit coming. But, puhleeeeze, do we have to have the obligatory ladies' room scene where the dispenser is kicked from the wall and the contents thereof used in a, ahem, nontraditional manner (as in a wound dressing)? I could do without that scene.
It sounds awful, but I didn't come away thinking I'd wasted $8 even though I wasn't really surprised at any point by the plot turns. I'd guessed the denouement about 1/4 of the way in and even though my iced tea had taken its inevitable effect, I sat until the closing credits began, just to make sure I was right about it all.
Salt succeeds in a nice little bit of misdirection which is revealed at the last moment, just when you might begin to wonder if you were wrong all along. The ending sets things up for a sequel which might actually be better than this first movie, given the premise of this one.
Of course, try as the world does -- even Hollywood has to recognize that women are different. It was all for love of a good man after all.
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