By Christopher Cassidy, Senior Editor
If Inception or Avatar was a fancy French banquet, then Salt was a giant chocolate bar. It was basically a running gunfight; fast, intense, and easily burned and digested.
But who doesn’t like chocolate bars? Designer chocolate bars (James Bond) have made it to the finest restaurants all around the world.
Unfortunately, Salt was just a Hershey’s bar.
In the beginning of the movie Evelyn Salt is rescued from a North Korean prison, shown bloodied, haggard, and dead looking, while begging innocence to the North Koreans. Evelyn Salt actually works for the FBI.
Early in the movie, a Russian defector is brought in, claiming that a Russian agent will travel to Washington to kill the president of Russia. Stop. Problem there. Since when are the Russians the bad guys? I know that Russian super-villains have killer accents, but since when are we enemies with Russia?
Oh well. I’m probably the only one who cares. Moving on.
The early stages of the movie are shot with an incredible bias from the director, trying to make Evelyn Salt look innocent. This just made me extremely uncomfortable, wanting to hate Salt but being pushed to like her. I was waiting for a Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde twist to emerge, but Evelyn Salt remained the unstoppable (and unremarkable) secret Russian “G12” agent (despite the fact that Russia’s CIA equivalent is the GIU).
Story aside, the movie was somewhat entertaining. The chases were entertaining, but the martial arts were disappointing, to say the least. Angelina Jolie might be as her name says, but she can’t fight for her life. Replace her with Jackie Chan, and THEN you have something good coming, but what they got done was repetitive and un-creative. Salt would take down the pathetic one guard who stupidly happened to have the key to the room that was just sealed off, and then was entered by Salt.
Summed up, the movie was an entertaining action film, but was so lacking in substance that I do not recommend it. Film aficionados, stay away, but have fun Bond fans.
