Salt (2010)

Tagline: Who is Salt?

Curiosity: My baby girl is obsessed with Angelina Jolie. So you best believe we saw this opening day.

Plot: Evelyn Salt (Jolie) is spy for America! She has a pleasant German husband ((Mike Krause) who is a spider expert! Her life is filled with explosions and marital bliss! She’s BFF with Liev Schrieber (played with great skill by the actual Live Schrieber!)! But when a Russian defector named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) claims Salt is going to kill the Russian president (Olek Krupa), she freaks out and runs away! Everyone is annoyed! Is Salt a KGB sleeper spy?! I THOUGHT THE COLD WAR WAS OVER!

Thoughts: I dig Jolie’s career path – she alternates well-made Oscar bait like A Mighty Heart and Changeling with action-packed popcorn fare like Wanted and Salt. Yeah, she can do drama, but she’s also got a knack for B-movies. While Wanted is a more satisfying movie overall, Salt is jammed with a series of ridiculous yet iconic set pieces. I don’t want to get too spoiler heavy, so I’ll just toss out keywords: Fire extinguisher, Taser, elevator shaft, funeral, SPIDERS.

Scriptwriter Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Law Abiding Citizen, and Ultraviolet, a film so terrible that I actually gave up on watching it for this blog) can be counted on for insane/inane ideas, and Salt is crammed with ’em. The sequences are funny/great; it’s only when you stop to consider the film’s lack of realism that it falls apart. Also worth noting: This movie could have been made at any time during the last 40 years. I thought Rambo III was silly for insisting the Cold War was totally still legit, but Salt goes even further. Shit, can Wimmer write a movie about the Nazis coming back? Howsabout the Confederate States of America?

Salt represents the exact reason why I set up this blog. Yeah, I loved Inception and A Single Man this year, but sometimes I need something that combines great cinematography, action, and terrible, terrible ideas. Salt is that kind of movie. It’s total cheese, but it’s not too hammy or self-aware, and that’s awesome.

Reflection: SPIDERS! OoOoOoOo!