Salt Movie Review: Movie Static

Salt is an action movie that combines the fast-paced thrill of the original Jason Bourne and the sexiness of Angelina Jolie, who as far as our movie experience goes, can try to look like a man so many times and still look erotic while doing it, turning every straight guy in the audience kind of gay little by little deep down inside. While the movie paled in performance next to Nolan's behemoth blockbuster Titanic 2 Inception, it's a nicely made movie that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The main movie plot is about a CIA agent named Evangeline Salt (Angelina Jolie) who gets identified by a Russian turncoat (some actor who isnt Angelina and can't be bothered to be identified) as an assassin out to kill the Russian president (Some guy in a toupe who slightly resembles Donald Trump). Themes of the trigger-happy cold war aggression between Russia and America is pervasive throughout the movie. Funny thing is that would have been interesting had Salt been released, oh I don't know, maybe 20 YEARS AGO BACK WHEN THE COLD WAR WAS STILL RELEVANT. But then again, who can hate a good Cold-war themed story? I mean apart from the Russians that always get the business end of the plot hammer, who doesn't?


Dialogue is kept basic, to almost a neanderthal level. To be fair, it's slightly more intelligent than The Last Airbender, whose lines at times felt like they came from a "Basic English Phrases" book. Anyway, for Salt's case at least, it doesn't matter all that much. That's the thing about action movies. They're almost like porn. Whether or not lines are long or short don't really matter, since the action more than carries the story, and the audience most of the time can't care less. A picture is worth a thousand words, and pictures of explosions are worth a thousand explosive words.

Acting for the most part is hardly memorable. While Jolie wasn't acting horribly, she wasn't exactly doing an Oscar winning performance either. (Not that she needed to. I bet they could make a movie of her walking around for two hours in various states of undress and it will still beat most other movies that get released along with it.) The Russians were, for the most part, like fleshed out stereotypes - vodka, rough raspy voice, half drunken look, and heavy accents. I'd say it's horrible and racist too if I didn't find it entertaining.

The best aspect of Salt is probably the storytelling. Salt takes the action movie and strips it down to its core, leaving barely any setup time. This is to make room for scenes that turns the movie into a single cut 2-hour long scene with more action than a hotel during prom night. And like prom night, we're not really complaining. Each scene keeps you at the edge of your seat, and the twists although slightly predictable, were nicely executed. The pacing became so fast for most of the movie that when the movie ended, we actually thought we were just in the first hour mark. Verily watching the movie had us thinking for one thing:

More Salt please.