'Salt' implodes in the gender blender
Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) spicing up the spy game. (Columbia Pictures)
Salt
Running time: 100 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13 (intense sequences of violence and action, profanity)
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The "Salt" talks have begun, and my inner voice won't stop jabbering about how old fashioned, clunky and preposterous Angelina Jolie's new action flick turned out to be.
Jolie's over the top woman-of-action extravaganza isn't quite enough to make me wish she'd just resurrected Lara Croft for a little more fantasy tomb raiding, but it's darn close.
"Salt" benefits from some great timing. The movie studio publicity mill is probably downright gleeful about opening a movie about deep-cover spies when the evening news mirrored the theme with busted Russian spies in this country who were outed and traded for detained Americans (also accused of spying).
That's not my beef with "Salt." In fact, good for them on the timing issue. My problem is that this tale of a CIA operative on the run after being accused of being a deep-cover operative was originally written for a male star. In fact, Tom Cruise's name has been mentioned a couple of times.
I have no problem with the gender switch, except that Evelyn Salt (Jolie), originally named Edwin Salt, kicks some very serious male buttocks almost constantly in one of the summers most action-packed thrillers. Think "Iron Man" without the suit.
Make no mistake about it, Salt is one bad dude. Sorry, woman. But as she goes rogue and fights for her life she's not duking it out with untrained yokels. She's enraged because of a plot twist I won't reveal here, so Evelyn's obviously pumped with adrenaline.
But Ms. Salt assaults and takes down highly trained CIA operatives, Secret Service agents and Russian assassins in groups, not just one at a time. I had a little problem with that, especially since it happens over and over.
Liev Schreiber and British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor play constantly squabbling government agents in hot pursuit of Salt quite well. Better than this star vehicle with the pedal to the action metal deserves, really.
Australian director Philip Noyce, who put Harrison Ford through his Jack Ryan paces with "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger" in the early and mid '90s, hasn't made a movie since "Catch a Fire" in 2006. He's worked with Jolie before, though. She co-starred with Denzel Washington in "The Bone Collector" with Noyce in the director's chair in 1999.
What have you done for me lately is what matters when the screen lights up these days, of course.
Noyce puts his camera in all the right places and the action is spectacular at times. But Kurt Wimmer's ("Law Abiding Citizen," "Ultraviolet") script often feels cobwebby.
And Jolie? She's a very capable actress; an Oscar winner, in fact. ("Girl, Interrupted").
She's just not a guy. Unfortunately, this actioner cries out for a male anti-hero.
Jolie's over the top woman-of-action extravaganza isn't quite enough to make me wish she'd just resurrected Lara Croft for a little more fantasy tomb raiding, but it's darn close.
"Salt" benefits from some great timing. The movie studio publicity mill is probably downright gleeful about opening a movie about deep-cover spies when the evening news mirrored the theme with busted Russian spies in this country who were outed and traded for detained Americans (also accused of spying).
That's not my beef with "Salt." In fact, good for them on the timing issue. My problem is that this tale of a CIA operative on the run after being accused of being a deep-cover operative was originally written for a male star. In fact, Tom Cruise's name has been mentioned a couple of times.
I have no problem with the gender switch, except that Evelyn Salt (Jolie), originally named Edwin Salt, kicks some very serious male buttocks almost constantly in one of the summers most action-packed thrillers. Think "Iron Man" without the suit.
Make no mistake about it, Salt is one bad dude. Sorry, woman. But as she goes rogue and fights for her life she's not duking it out with untrained yokels. She's enraged because of a plot twist I won't reveal here, so Evelyn's obviously pumped with adrenaline.
But Ms. Salt assaults and takes down highly trained CIA operatives, Secret Service agents and Russian assassins in groups, not just one at a time. I had a little problem with that, especially since it happens over and over.
Liev Schreiber and British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor play constantly squabbling government agents in hot pursuit of Salt quite well. Better than this star vehicle with the pedal to the action metal deserves, really.
Australian director Philip Noyce, who put Harrison Ford through his Jack Ryan paces with "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger" in the early and mid '90s, hasn't made a movie since "Catch a Fire" in 2006. He's worked with Jolie before, though. She co-starred with Denzel Washington in "The Bone Collector" with Noyce in the director's chair in 1999.
What have you done for me lately is what matters when the screen lights up these days, of course.
Noyce puts his camera in all the right places and the action is spectacular at times. But Kurt Wimmer's ("Law Abiding Citizen," "Ultraviolet") script often feels cobwebby.
And Jolie? She's a very capable actress; an Oscar winner, in fact. ("Girl, Interrupted").
She's just not a guy. Unfortunately, this actioner cries out for a male anti-hero.
