Maggi Noodle Review: Salt

Let me state this upfront: I am neither a big fan of Angelina Jolie nor do I think that she is particularly beautiful. My disdain for her acting prowess is based on the Lara Croft movies. My indifference to her beauty is more because of personal taste. In spite of that, I found her to be particularly effective in her latest movie. She is a little too thin to convince me that she is physically capable of some of the actions sequences she participates in. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Salt is an uncommon action movie among today's whiplash-inducing, CGI-heavy, action genre movies. It is not as if it does not have the requisite parkour-heavy running sequences, car chases, exploding buildings, and bullet-wasting shootouts. It is just that it is done very effectively. The story is about a woman who may or may not be a sleeper Russian agent and whose goal is to eliminate some big guns to cause worldwide panic. Or something like that.

As in any action movie, the initial story is just a set up for a series of set pieces where the characters speak only those lines that will move the movie forward. Salt is no different but about 10 minutes into the movie I stopped paying attention to the absurdity and just got carried along in the slipstream of its fast-paced action. At less than 100 minutes, the movie does not linger to contemplate the enormity of the conspiracy that is being perpetrated by the main players. If you can believe that a person can chase a fast-descending elevator for 8 floors and do it with just a grunt or two of exertion while jumping from girder to girder, then I have just the movie for you to see.

I don't know how else to say this, but here it is - Salt is an action movie to its core and yet it is easily the best-made action movie of this year. By a wide margin. Take a bow, Angelina Jolie.

Here's the preview for the movie, one of the better previews of late: