Salt

I found this thriller to be enjoyable. Lots of action - some of it pretty unbelievable - and some twists in the story. Very well acted on all parts. I really like Jolie much more in these action movies than the dramas she does.

Was it realistic? No. Did all the dots get connected? Not all. Was it fun to watch? Yes. Was it predictable? Not entirely. Lots of twists & turns. If you don't mind people sliding down a banister with six-shooters out shooting 5 hit men with Uzi's, then you'll probably like it. (This didn't really happen, and I don't really know guns but you get the message.) I thought I had it all figured out but I was oh so wrong. I would like to see it again, knowing what I know now. There wasn't a lot of cursing and relatively little blood & guts considering this type of movie. I must say, sitting next to some women who liked shouting at the screen and throwing their own punches heightened the excitement for the audience.

While I can't say that I was awaiting Angelina Jolie's latest outing with bated breath, I was intrigued by the fact that Salt was originally intended to be a Tom Cruise vehicle.

Tom's waning box office pulling-power aside, this sex-swap was a smart move by writer Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium) as it gives Jolie the chance to prove that she can lay the smack-down on just as many henchmen as the boys can. Having her rather than him as the duplicitous CIA agent Evelyn Salt, Wimmer gives a fresh angle to a plot that could easily have been a boring instalment of the Bourne series. Salt also sees the welcome return of Russian villains to the cinema after a long period in which Middle Eastern terrorists were severely over-worked.

When a Soviet defector strolls into the CIA and announces that Salt is a sleeper agent who will kill the Russian president, she goes on the run. Fearing for the safety of her husband Michael, Salt sets out to find him before agents Winter (Liev Schreiber) and Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) catch up with her. The question of where Salt's loyalties lie is the true source of tension and Jolie plays it cool, gaining and dismissing the audience's trust several times over.

Schreiber and Ejiofor draw the short straws in terms of dialogue and simply run after Jolie for the entire movie without doing anything of significance. Hopefully, if the proposed sequel goes ahead, Wimmer will be able to correct this glaring oversight.

The action scenes are sharply directed and Jolie finally gets her hands dirty, particularly in the opening exchanges where she's being tortured in a Korean prison. If that wasn't enough, she also flies down an elevator shaft by leaping from wall to wall – it was a silly effect but added a cheesy, fanciful element to what would have been an entirely too serious movie.

Consequently the first 40 minutes are fast and furious as Salt evades her fellow agents by any means necessary but not to be outdone, the rest of the film takes a left turn and continues to surprise with some serious fisticuffs, gun-play and high-speed car chases. Admittedly, for all its skill and enthusiasm, Salt's finale is a little over-the-top and it wanders into well-worn ground without knowing when to stop. Aside from this minor gripe, Salt is a well-directed action movie that delivers us a potential new franchise, an intriguing lead character and an exciting close to a lacklustre summer.

Ready set get the popcorn! Non-stop action for those that want to veg out and popcorn up and for those reasons it delivers. Jolie pulls it off although if you take the film too seriously it has many flaws so resist the temptation to do so. I don't mind someone being really good at what they do but impossibly good stretches it too thin. Just keep eating your popcorn as the plot unravels and we like to follow it when it does. Great countdown to nuclear war sequence and depending on which version you watch (there are three), it ends satisfyingly, ends with a potential sequel or ends period. This is a movie where you don't mind having your senses ...

While I was expecting a little more sophistication in the plot department I realized that such a thing couldn't happen when US versus Russia is at play. (To my knowledge the Cold War is over and the spy business has become more complicated than ever. This oversimplification of old enemies and their wars is too much.) The plot is all over the place and realism is thrown out of the door. There are too many things happening in the movie that are too convenient and even impossible. Still it didn't keep me from enjoying this movie. It even managed to thrill me at occasions even if I was aware that most of the plot was nonsense. Jolie does an excellent job as the action heroine. The action is that makes this movie tick and that is almost the only thing that should count in a movie like this.Ignore the bashing and trashing of Jolie. This is pure entertainment!