Forget Bruce Willis and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. If Sylvester Stallone really wanted to get people excited for The Expendables, he would have found room for Angelina Jolie. If you count Gone in 60 Seconds (and really, why wouldn't you?) she's been a major selling point in four $100 million-plus summer blockbusters since 2000. And judging from the new trailer for Salt, Jolie will add another to the list come Labor Day. When did she become one of the most bankable action stars in Hollywood?
In the new film from director Phillip Noyce (Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games), Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, your typical CIA officer -- until a Russian informant accuses her of being a spy and plotting to kill the president. And we're off! With car chases, wild escapes (oh, hey, let's jump a truck off the Queensboro Bridge), double-crosses, mistaken identities and even some Mission: Impossible-like mask peeling, Salt packs in enough spy tropes to make it feel like the Jason Bourne movie Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass will never make. In fact, everything about the Salt trailer feels ripped out of the Bourne playbook, right down to Liev Schreiber in the Joan Allen role as sympathetic and confused department head. Considering the three Bourne movies grossed over $520 million combined at the box office, this is probably a good thing.
VERDICT: Sold.
(The YouTube embed is below, but Apple's got a higher quality version in case it gets yanked.)