People either love Angelina Jolie or not. I’m in the love camp. I’ve always had a big girl-crush on her strength and independence and willingness to go her own way, despite what others say.
In ‘Salt,’ her new movie in theaters today, she plays a CIA agent on the run after a double cross. The plot involves embedded Russian spies in America, which is sort of ripped from the headlines, considering the recent news of a Russian spy ring in the States. Let’s face it – there’ve been spies in the U.S. forever.
Directed by Australian director Phillip Noyce, the film also stars Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Andre Braugher.
After the jump, check out reviews from around the web…
LOVE IT!
Entertainment Weekly: "She still retains a hint of sensuality in those satin-pillow lips, only now that famous feature is set off by a body so uncurvaceously skinny that her entire physique seems to have been stripped down for action. There are no shadings to Angelina Jolie in ‘Salt;’ she’s all sinew and will. In that sense, though, she’s the very model of a modern kinetic movie star."
Rolling Stone: "Enter Jolie, and something equally advantageous for the movie: timeliness. Sleeper spies are making major headlines, what with the FBI rounding up 10 members of a Russian spy ring suspected of living among us for more than a decade. And who can forget bombshell mole Anna Chapman, a.k.a. Anya Kushchenko, a centerfold-ready redhead working the Manhattan party circuit while passing info to the Russians. The Cold War is back, baby, and Salt is riding the wave.”
Roger Ebert: "Jolie is one fine-looking woman. You don’t need me to tell you that. It’s why she gets the big bucks. The movies have celebrated her eyes, lips, profile, biceps, boobs, waist, butt, thighs. ‘Salt’ pays tribute to her ankles. Anyone who can jump from the heights she does here, in the way she does it, may die from a lot of causes, but a sprained ankle won’t be one of them."
Chicago Tribune: "Noyce has a refreshing resistance to computer-generated effects, so even when the picture’s second half settles for bigger and more hyperbolic threats and a steadily mounting body count, the freneticism never hits the ‘Knight and Day’ level."
New York Daily News: "There’s enough preposterousness in ‘Salt’ to set off a Geiger counter — including a death by shoe-stiletto, a fire extinguisher-turned-rocket launcher and activated nuke codes — but director Philip Noyce (‘Patriot Games,’ ‘Clear and Present Danger’), working from a taut script by Kurt Wimmer, makes the retro thrills feel new.”
Variety: "Where the film’s old-school quality pays off, however, is in the fight sequences; if we’ve seen the stairwell attacks, slo-mo machine gunnings and rush-hour getaways many times before, they’re at least presented with coherence and crackle, and with little in the way of high-tech gadgetry (at one point, Salt builds a weapon out of a wastebasket and a fire extinguisher)."
DON’T LOVE IT!
St. Petersburg Times: "Jolie runs as well as any action hero, and totes weapons better than most. Neither skill matches her ability to cash $20 million paychecks, which is probably what she’s racing to do at ‘Salt’s’ open-ended fadeout. Then she’ll get to the rest of the bad guys out there, waiting to be ambushed."
New York Press: "This thrill-ride is based on witnessing U.S. vulnerability and ineptitude. Salt bounces off walls, off 18-wheel trucks and police cars, decimating CIA and Secret Service personnel with uncompromising, unstoppable determination. Essentially a series of anti-military battle scenes, Salt teases the fun and implicit righteousness of treasonous behavior — something Jane Fonda never even came close to doing during the Vietnam era."
Associated Press: "But what Jolie is called upon to do grows increasingly difficult to accept, even for summer escapism. Stunts that would result in serious injury or even death to the average person are nothing for Salt. She jumps off an overpass and onto a moving 18-wheeler, then onto a tanker truck, then onto another semi before landing on the windshield of a cab, stealing a motorcycle and zipping away. She leaps from a moving subway train onto a platform, rolls and just gets up and runs. She gets shot and places a maxi-pad on the wound."
Arizona Republic: "Granted, ‘Salt,’ starring Angelina Jolie, isn’t supposed to be a documentary about national security. But couldn’t they at least make it a little bit realistic? No. Instead, a massive manhunt involving a beautiful spy continually leads nowhere, even to the point where White House security … oh, never mind. Saying more would reveal too much. Suffice it to say that it’s something that would make Austin Powers blush, baby, but it’s not supposed to be funny. I don’t think so, anyway."
Watch the Trailer:
Images: Sony Pictures
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