Ridiculous but fun

Rating: 7/10 (24 July 2010)

Russian spies? How retro. How old school. Ha ha.
Oh, wait, didn't they arrest a bunch recently?
Lots of potential in rebooting the old Cold War Paranoia trope. "Salt" mostly squanders that potential to be a flat-out car-crash and punch-out actioner. Nothing wrong with that. Pass the popcorn.
Posts here reference the Bourne and Bond movies in describing "Salt," but the movie it reminded me most of is "The Fugitive." "Salt" is one long improbable chase as our CIA agent protagonist Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) runs around Washington and New York trying to clear her name and prevent the assassination of the Russian president, who's in town to attend the funeral of the American vice president.
The entire movie is a series of escape set pieces. Her escape from the CIA office. The chase on foot through the streets of D.C. The escape from her apartment. Inside the cathedral during the funeral. Her escape after being arrested. Her escape from the barge. And, finally, her escape from the helicopter.
The movie delays letting on whether Salt is a goodie or a baddie. I was not fooled. For all the cops, Secret Service, CIA, FBI, etc., she took on — beating them up, breaking their bones, knocking them unconscious, shooting them in the arm — she never kills a single one. What does that tell you?
BTW, how did she get out of that interrogation room in the beginning?
A franchise being set up and I think we can anticipate the return of Evelyn Salt, a new movie avenger against a team of men and women trained from childhood, in a secret compound in Russia, to become CIA agents. At the same time, Salt will remain a hunted woman in America. I anticipate the moment in the next film when she tells her boss over the phone, "You look tired. Why don't you get some rest."
On display here is one of Hollywood's newest action gimmicks -- Salt is coming at a guy to deliver a punch, but first she runs up the wall.
The franchise needs a thrilling theme song, something like the Bourne movies' "Extreme Ways" by Moby.
I would have given this 6 instead of 7 stars, but the movie contains the wildest strangulation scene in the history of cinema.