'Salt' needs more seasoning.

SWMBO and I LOVE streaming netflix.  It is one of the reasons we are able to make it with just basic(and I mean BASIC) cable.  One of our few complaints about the streaming options on netflix is a lack of 'current' releases, so, when 'Salt' showed up as a available, my wife was pretty excited.  Who am I to not let her get what she wants sometimes?

I wasn't overly impressed.  Giving it it's due, I can't say it was bad...it just wasn't better than other movies of it's genre.  It was no better than the Bourne movies with Matt Damon, didn't hold a candle to 'Taken', and doesn't deserve to be compared to 'Hanna'.

Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent, even though she works at a building CLEARLY labeled as a petroleum company, which just goes to show you that all oil companies are evil.  20 minutes before she is supposed to leave for the day for her wedding anniversary, a Russian Defector walks in, needing a quick debrief.  Bummer on the timing, and bummer on what he says....because he accuses Angelina of being a Russian Sleeper Agent.  OMG!

Ready, set, chase!

Angelina plays the rabbit, and the two main hounds per suing her are Liev Schreiber, who plays her defensive boss, and Chiwetel Eliofor(who was the global warming scientist in 2012, and more importantly, The Operative in Serenity, and played with Clive Owen in Children of Man) playing the Counter Intelligence guy who's out to catch her. 

So.  Chase, Chase, Chase.  Angelina does some McGuyver type stuff, beats a few people up, jumps off bridges and from the top of one truck to the top of another truck, and escapes. 

Then she dyes her hair, beats up a few more people, and let's herself get captured, just to escape again, and we find out, that MAYBE she is the bad guy.  And she is far from alone as the bad guy.

My wife and I both agreed that the movie had one or two really cool parts, especially when she dispenses 'Final Justice' to the main bad guy.

The plot is not really the problem in this movie.  It is no more goofy or unlikely than any other action thriller that has come out in the last 10 years.  I can't believe I'm going to say this as a guy, but my real problem with the movie might be Angelina Jolie.

For a span of 6 years or so(from Bone Collector to Mr. and Mrs. Smith) you would not have gotten much argument from me if you wanted to say that Angelina Jolie was one of the 5 most attractive women in the world.  Even in Salt, she still has a classically beautiful face...but...what bothers me, is she in thin verging on the point of frail.  Jumping from truck to truck on the freeway, I think she would have snapped both her legs(okay, so would Jason Statham, in real life...but he looks the part).  Even as a 'highly trained Russian Assassin' she would not have been able to go toe-to-toe with other 'highly trained' types.  Liev Schrieber is 6 inches taller and outweighs her by what....80 pounds? 

All this bashing, and I am still going to give it 3 out of 5 stars...it's not the movies fault that Hollywood has told Angelina she needs to be 5'8" and 120 pounds to be beautiful.  It's not this movies fault that 'Taken' and 'Hanna' are better.  It's still a fair-to-middling flick, with occasional sparks of 'Oh, cool' thrown in.