Live Review

Salt –

• 24th Aug 2010

Salt was once a vehicle for Thom Cruise until he decided to ditch it for action set piece comedy fiasco that turned into Knight and Day. But it’s weird how similar these films are in terms of some of the set pieces. Regardless of it all, cruise left, Jolie entered and of course had the part rewritten fit for a woman.

Angelina Jolie proved her action credentials in the Lara Croft films; despite what you may think of them. Here she is at it again playing an agent for the US Government who is one day ousted as a soviet spy.

Forced on the run and from one OTT set piece to the next – Jolie’s Salt becomes quite the athlete. There are twists and turns along the way which point the direction of the character in many different ways.

Some of the twists in this film you may not see coming, but I think towards the end not many people will be too surprised by how things are going to turn out.

Salt seems to have entered the ring as a female alternative to Jason Bourne and James Bond – but frankly the script (whilst fulfilling all the merits of an action film) lacks the depth needed to make it a classic.

It works well, but has too many familiar things about it – and even in some action scenes the viewers predictability is high. In one scene Salt in mid escape is riding on top of a truck. Her immediate former bosses are lining up gun sight to take her down. So naturally she has to get out of the way first. This bit of action could have been done spontaneously which would have surprised the audience perhaps if she just did the thing she does. But instead the filmmakers play join the dots by showing us where she is going to jump to first and then having her do it. It is impressive stunt work, but when you’ve seen one action star leap from one truck to another, and they tell you before they are going to do it – it does become a bit old hat.

If the film makes money then of course they could continue this as a franchise – but right away they are going to have to come up with a meatier plot if it is to work, and not just throw the character at a team of bad guys for her to employ a bit of wrath against.