Salt (2010)

Review: written March 2011

Not ground-breaking, but fun

This is one of those movies that actually seems to benefit from seeing on home cinema after the release, when the buzz of expectation has died down. What in the cinema seemed to be disappointing, can now be enjoyed for what it serves best as: a rollicking good action thriller with no pretensions of social relevance or the need to be tied down by modern day plausibility. It's a popcorn movie - and as such, a pretty well put together one.

Jolie is the CIA agent with a past, going about her day to day business, getting ready to go home to her husband.. when her world is turned upside down. A Russian agent defects, announcing a dastardly cold war style plot, and declaring to all that she is in fact a Soviet sleeper agent. Her close colleague Liev Schreiber defends her, but Chiwetel Ejiofor (always good value) knows she has to be grounded. Salt goes on the run... but is she or isn't she a Russian spy..? The movie works best in its ambiguous phase.. once we know the truth, the plotting is predictable, the unveiling unsurprising, and the action beats to the end work well enough, but don't deliver anything you haven't seen before - not least the sort of fanciful Whitehouse based scenario you might have enjoyed in, say, "24".

Angelina Jolie picked this action vehicle after Tom Cruise turned it down, but you'd never to be able to tell the story was tweaked for the gender change. It's worth remembering though, if you feel at all dissatisfied with this movie, spare a thought for the alternative... you could be watching the movie Tom Cruise opted to do instead... Knight and Day.

Worth watching then, but perhaps not strong enough to warrant the sequel hinted at by the end of the movie.