SALT Review

Hello and welcome to the first review of this fascinating blog called The Reel Reviewer! I went and saw Salt (starring Angelina Jolie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Liev Schreiber) today and overall it exceeded my expectations of the film. From the sneak preview given by USA as well as the interview I saw with Jolie, it looked as though this film was going to be a completely mindless action flick with absolutely no plot and was pleasantly surprised. If you haven’t figured out what it’s about yet, here’s a quick snippet of the summary from IMDb. “As a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt swore an oath to duty, honor and country. Her loyalty will be tested when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture. Salt’s efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubt on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: ‘Who is Salt?’” So to start off, the acting was great! Jolie did an outstanding job as Salt, but that comes as no surprise seeing as this is her sort of movie. She’s an action movie actress. Regardless, I thought she did an outstanding job, as did the rest of the cast. Schreiber and the dude who plays Peabody (there’s no chance that I’ll ever spell his name correctly. It’s like his parents spilled the game of scrabble they were playing and named him using the face up letters) do great jobs as well. I’ll try not to give too much away, but there are definitely some twists in this movie. I thing I didn’t like about this movie is unbelievable turn the plot took, and I don’t mean unbelievable in the good way. The threat level after Salt is accused of being a Russian Spy goes from the assassination of the Russian President to the destruction of the freakin’ world. That’s all I’ll say to keep from giving up the end, but that’s the turn it takes, and it goes from being a threat that’s plausible to a threat that’s plausibility is atrociously minuscule. That’s just how it goes. This is definitely not a thinking movie. This is one of those movies you watch to escape reality and not think about the outside world. It absorbs you into the film and then you don’t have to think through much of it. There are plenty of flashbacks which help with Salt’s character development quite nicely, but otherwise, this movie is basically a fast-paced action movie with a somewhat interesting plot and enough energy to keep your mind occupied for the duration of the film.