SALT

So, I thought some international weapons treaty discussion would be fun ...

No, not really. I saw the Jolie movie last night.

It was some damn, damn solid action. I was entirely engrossed and when the movie was over, I couldn't believe so much time had passed.

That said, I was disappointed. I'll elaborate with some ranting after a spoiler warning:






Uh, SPOILERS AHEAD
















Seriously? The movie ends like that, right in the middle of the story? I look around the web and see "they're thinking about making another one" "they hope to re-sign Jolie" "they're trying to make a sequel". What kind of asshole ends a movie like that without having a sequel or two hammered in stone? The ending is similar to the end of the first Matrix, but that felt like a much more natural stopping place than this did.

I really don't even have a HUGE problem with the movie ending like that , but there was no need to. It was 99 fucking minutes long. They could easily have pushed it another hour without it being too long, maybe a little more. At its insane pace, that would ave been pretty exhausting, but they had plenty of time to introduce and complete whatever plot devices they needed to to wrap things up. She had already killed pretty much everyone we had been introduced to that needed to be killed, but again, they had an hour+ in which to do it, if they needed that kind of time.

Then, of course, much of the action is simply ridiculous. I sometimes struggle with "suspending belief", mostly only in movies that are set in our world with our rules, though. Inception is a movie set in a world where invading dreams is possible. Avatar is set in a world where there's another planet with giant blue Indians. Ok. I can totally get behind that. Hell, James Bond is set in a world where all sorts of quasi-impossible things happen. The Bourne movies, on the other hand, aren't. Their action is generally plausible, if someone could really be as awesome as Jason Bourne. Salt defies explanation at nearly every turn. There appear to be about eight fat white nerdy guys that serve to defend the White House. They guard a supposed Russian super spy with seemingly as few people as possible. They don't lock the interview rooms where they hold suspects and when they do capture and transport Jolie (as usual, with a severely undermanned escort), they give her handcuffs with a super long chain, perfect for strangling someone with. Gee, how fortunate. Those are all elements found in Bond or even 24, but with those shows I feel like they do so with a wink and a nod. Salt felt to me like it wanted to be serious, then wasn't.

After all that I would still recommend it. It was fun and absolutely heart pounding. But my expectations helped sour the experience a little. An abrupt ending in a movie you know to be part of a series doesn't bother me, but I didn't know this to be part of a series. (And if it turns out it's not, then they really are assholes.) A "just go with it" attitude is fine if that's what I'm expecting. I was looking for Bourne, Part 4, though, and got something else.

It was fun and fast, but lacking. 6 of 10, roughly it's rottentomatoes score, is about right.

 

I've heard nothing but good things. We'll see if I can ever get to the theater and see it.

 

Of my group of five, one other guy felt about the way I did and the other three really liked it.