Salt (2010)

I have not enjoyed Angelina as a person for a long time now so I had little interest in seeing her in anything. That was especially true when I learned that this project was originally attached to Tom Cruise. That is the kiss of death for anything entertaining these days.

Everything you need to know about the movie can be seen in the trailer. It stretched credibility to believe that someone so bone skinny can do that things that you see Angelina do in this movie. And I am not talking about the stunt work here. Just the ordinary running and jumping and punching and falling.

Every other stunt requires near perfect, motion picture timing. Where a Bruce Willis convinced us that similar perfect timing was pure dumb luck (say in 'Die Hard'), Angelina's stunts just look staged.



I guess that is what we go to the movies for - to believe the unbelievable that is right there before our eyes. Liev Schreiber and the rest of the cast have the ability to blend into a character in the way that Angelina just can't. I am not sure if that is because of her immense fame or her talents as an actress.

The movie is not terrible. The plot moves at a rapid pace and the chase sequences are excellent. I found the 'Russian defector' plot to be dated, however - like Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum wrote it in the 80s.

One of the first questions that came up in my head while watching this was, "Does every agent have a fully stocked 'stash bag' in their apartment, at the ready, for every occasion such as this? You would think that this kind of preparation wouldn't be necessary for a non-field agent. If it wasn't standard procedure then she is definitely a spy to keep something like that around, just in case she was found out.

From there on every other plot point is just manipulation. I chose to let myself be manipulated, fully knowing what I was getting myself in for. That is not easy for someone like me to do. Plus I learned that a tampon makes the best emergency pressure bandage, ever.