Salt is a well-made thriller that cements Angelina Jolie’s place as one of the top female action stars today. From the trailer we find out that she stars as Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who was exposed as a Russian sleeper agent by a Russian defector Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski). Now she’s running from the government while trying to clear her name and find her husband.
If you think you already know the story after watching the trailer, think again especially not when you got Sabretooth as partner. Liev Schreiber play Ted Winter, Salt’s partner and closest friend. He tried to convince the agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejofor) that Salt’s innocent. Peabody didn’t buy his plea or Winter just didn’t try hard enough.
The action sequences in Salt were well choreographed but it slightly came off as a Bourne rip-off with hints of MacGyver and Jackie Chan thrown in. It has ridiculous car chases, huge explosions, and an Angelina Jolie kicking everyone’s ass.
Salt has twists that make its plot look like a pretzel. So while on the run, she managed to assassinate the Russian president to get Orlov’s trust again. When she gets to Orlov’s lair, he kills her husband. After learning Orlov’s plan, it’s now Kill Bill time and she managed to kill a boatload of Russian spies including Orlov.
The final mission is to use the US nukes to create chaos and kill the US president after launching the nukes. And it turns out that she’s not the only Russian sleeper in the CIA. Then news of the Russain president coming out of his coma induced by Salt’s poison was shown on the screen.
So it turned out that Salt is really a Russian-spy-turned-CIA-agent-turned-Russian-spy-turned-rogue-independent-operative. She saved the day, killed Winter and escaped by jumping from an FBI helicopter into the Potomac River with the help of Peabody.
After Inception, Salt is a walk in the park. Even with all the twists and turns of the story, the audience didn’t have a hard time to guess who the bad guys are. It is still entertaining and Angelina Jolie didn’t have to show skin to make you watch this movie.
