Salt

Viewer Rating:Aine has rated Salt rating: 4 Star

Take Salt with a pinch of salt but some great twists.

The above really sums up my views on this movie, from the badly explained opening all the way through to the unlikely ending. Having said all that, it is enjoyable as long as you check your brain at the door.

I was a fan of Jolie in the tomb raider franchise but I think she's beginning to take herself too seriously. From the start, the user is drawn into something that seems not quite right but it's extremely hard to put your finger on it. When things begin to pan our and are explained, we learn that Salt was captured in North Korea and was rescued by the man who'd become her husband. There is as ever more to it than that but it sets the pace nicely. Cut to Salt's day job which clearly isn't what it seems – and this is where the action really starts. We meet a so called defector who's not quite what he seems. Turns out Salt really isn't what she seems nor are those closest to her. In quite a daring game of cat and mouse she becomes the hunted seemingly to fulfil the defector's “prophecy” but again, there's another couple of twists.

All in all, it's a good solid movie but Jolie is a good actress and she's not overly stretching herself with this one, I'd nearly go as far as calling it a lazy performance. Liev Schreiber is excellent; it's only a pity that his turn comes late in the game, one of his more solid performances. Also Chiwetel Ejiofor was fantastic; he's really come on over the last few movies' he's been in. Nearly as the character who's got the most to lose and who gets played by all sides – he does really well. Definitely one of his better turns.

The effects are good too – I read that Jolie did her own stunts, fair play to her. My gripe really is that things are just so far fetched – like the prosthetics that make her look creepily like her brother, the random barge that we're lead to believe in down town New York that's so full of Russians it's practically running on vodka that no one notices gets blown up. It doesn't quite fit. Also it's quite difficult to empathise or like Salt in any way which is surprising given the very start of the movie. I'm not so sure what why this is the case, if it's the way the film is scripted or if it's down to Jolie or maybe a mixture of the two.

One of my massive pet peeves with movies at the moment is the obvious tendency to set things up for a sequel/further franchise. It takes an element of the mystique out of things and deadens the nerves in my opinion when you know that the hero/heroine of the piece will be back at least once more. With Salt it was more than obvious and setting up Jolie's character and Ejiofor's character to have such an obvious love/hate relationship…..well it takes the brains out of things a little bit. Having said all that though, I did enjoy it and I would recommend.

Review published on the 12 October 2010 14:03