REVIEW: Salt, Angelina Jolie Deliver the Action-Packed Summer Blockbuster Goods
Jolie is great fun to watch -- for style and grace, she's the closest we've got to a modern-day Errol Flynn or Burt Lancaster -- and Noyce makes sure she looks her best. The action in Salt is shot and edited so cleanly that it makes the movie feel like a miracle of modern-day action filmmaking. There's no choppy, rapid-fire cutting. Instead, Noyce and his editors, Stuart Baird and John Gilroy, connect the visuals into thrilling but logical mosaics -- we always know who's coming from where, and more often than not, that who is Jolie, running, jumping or sprinting into action.
Noyce has made his share of action thrillers (he's the director behind the Tom Clancy adaptations Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger), but he's pulled off more serious, emotionally complex material too (like his meticulous and thoughtful version of Graham Greene's The Quiet American). Salt is, of course, closer in style to the former than the latter; still, Noyce approaches the material with a healthy sense of humor. The subject matter alone is likely to give moviegoers of a certain age a pleasant shiver of Cold War nostalgia, and Noyce runs with that. (The Cold War wasn't so much fun while it was going on, but as much as we feared that the Soviets might someday come over and liquefy our buildings, they never actually did so.) Touches like Orlov's dumpling-thick Russian accent, or the way Salt wraps herself in a swishy fur-trimmed cape, topped off with a Dr. Zhivago toque, are served up with a sly wink.
And yet Noyce takes Jolie and all her capabilities seriously. We're meant to enjoy her kung-fu kicks and rock 'em-sock 'em punches. But her face is the real secret weapon here, and Noyce never loses sight of that. The plot twists of Salt unfold with delicious silliness, but Noyce gives his star a moment of great emotional gravity -- we're allowed to witness a horrific event, but how we might feel about it is inconsequential. Noyce trains the camera on Jolie's face, and across a span of mere seconds, we see a color-wheel of emotions -- horror, suppressed pain, anger and resolve -- drift across it.
Salt is entertaining without being lame-brained, intelligent without resorting to tricks and gimmickry. But even though it exists squarely within the framework of summer entertainment, Noyce allows his star, and us, to make an emotional investment in the proceedings. Salt is over before you know it -- I gasped when the credits started rolling, because I thought surely there must be more. That's when I realized how inured I've become to action-movie climaxes that rattle on turgidly for 10, 20, even 30 minutes. Noyce, on the other hand, won't have Salt outstaying her welcome, and he has no qualms about setting us up for a Salt II. Whatever she's leaping onto or into next, he trusts that we'll want to follow.
Pages: 1 2
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
Apparently it is. But I wish it wasn't. More balanced critiques on the part of the "Editor in Chief" would go some ways towards quelling that annoyance. But then again, it wouldn't be as maddening and fun now, would it? And her reviews wouldn't gain nearly as much attention to sate her lonely ego.
"For her review (gee what a surprise that an Angelina Jolie starrer gets an unqualified rave from Stephanie - gosh darn it, never saw that one coming!!) praises Salt for all the same qualities she derided Inception for having: an unbelievable plot set in an "alt universe,""
...that's not what she derides Inception for.
" "outlandish plot twists,""
...she bashes Inception for using plot twists as a means of advancing whatever retarded homilies Nolan feels like boring us with. Salt's "outlandish plot twists" are in service of actually advancing the plot and character development.
" over-the-top images which equate "awesomeness" with "greatness,""
...the only slightly over-the-top image Salt has is Jolie jumping on a truck. Inception has Paris folding in on itself, a van falling off a bridge in extremely slow motion, and a zero-gravity hotel room fight.
SZ uses the word "modest" to describe Salt for a reason. There's hardly anything over-the-top about it, ESPECIALLY when compared to Inception.
"paper-thin characterization, etc., etc."
There was arguably more characterization here than in Inception. And the best part is that Salt has a genuine personality and shows a different range of emotions, rather than Dom Cobb's range of pained to slightly less pained to really pained.
" No use trying to find consistency and fairness in a Stephanie Zacharek evaluation. Read between the lines and she's basically excusing Salt for containing the exact same elements she found objectionable and tiresome in Inception."
Wrong again, Chris. I prefer to read the lines themselves, because that's whee the text is, which means I'll actually learn something. You should try that, too.
Your constant embarrassing ass-kissing of Stephanie is truly embarrassing by this point, Trace. Give it up. You've failed to make a single convincing argument. The only people convinced by what you say are people who are already militant, unyielding Zacharek fans.
*There was arguably more characterization here than in Inception. And the best part is that Salt has a genuine personality and shows a different range of emotions, rather than Dom Cobb's range of pained to slightly less pained to really pained.*
There's more to real criticism than simply asserting over and over that something is true. What evidence do you or Zacharek provide for this assertion? None. This is precisely why Zacharek fails as a critic. All she can do is claim that one movie features better characterization, another one worse. But she can't provide a shred of evidence for this. On the contrary, the one example of really precise description she provides is this
*The movie opens with a flashback, jolting us back to early-2000’s North Korea. A semi-naked Salt is being tortured by soldiers in a dank-looking dungeon. They keep insisting she’s a spy; she keeps repeating, with unwavering authority, “I’m not a spy, I’m a businesswoman”*
Which is a total cliche! The only time Zacharek is specific in her descriptions, she ends up describing scenarios that are the epitome of cliched. Therefore, epic fail for Steph, and epic fail for you.
"There's more to real criticism than simply asserting over and over that something is true. What evidence do you or Zacharek provide for this assertion? None. This is precisely why Zacharek fails as a critic. All she can do is claim that one movie features better characterization, another one worse. But she can't provide a shred of evidence for this."
Well, I could write in grave detail every twitch on Jolie's face as she emotes, but other than that, you'll have to see the movie. But of course, seeing as you couldn't be bothered to see the obvious differences in execution AND concept for Inception and The Matrix, my guess is that you're not really into that idea.
The bigest bullshit I ever saw.So many mistakes in one movie.Just for dements and idiots.
« Previous