This is a bit belated, but since I've been playing catch up these days, I only saw the Angelina Jolie starrer Salt very recently. Having seen it, I can wager a bet and say that I believe I've just seen the birth of a female spy franchise.
Raise your hands, those of you who've seen the film and feel that it's only the beginning.
Okay, you can put your hands down now.
Evelyn Salt (Jolie), a CIA agent, is actually a double agent for the KGB. She was raised from infancy in Russia to be an “unbreakable” spy, to be planted in America as the daughter of an American couple who died in a car crash. She was to live her new life, join the CIA, and wait, patiently, for Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski), the spymaster, to reappear in her life and tell her about her part in the grand plan to destroy the United States.
He comes to her as a Russian defector telling the story of the secret program she was part of, triggering a series of events that would take everything, including her loving German husband Mike Krause, away from Salt and put her on a path of revenge and rampage, beginning with Orlov.
She eventually discovers what the grand plan is—the Russian spies forcing the United States to nuke Tehran, Iran and Mecca, Saudi Arabia to trigger the decline of America. She also discovers that she can't trust anyone, not even her friend and colleague of 15 years Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber).
How Salt eludes the CIA, the FBI, and the Russian spies, in one exciting chase scene to another, from start to finish, is the meat of the film. Jolie is a perfect fit for the role—no surprise there, though, because the script was originally written for Tom Cruise and was rewritten for Jolie when Cruise had to decline because the original male title character was a little too much like Mission Impossible's Ethan Hunt.
Jolie delivers in all the action scenes: there's Salt breaking out of the CIA's sealed second floor; there's the foot chase that ensues that has her fleeing on foot, leaping onto one moving truck after another; eluding bullets; riding a motorcycle to freedom; killing a roomful of Russian spies; and parkour-ing her way down an elevator shaft in pursuit of the US president. What makes Salt better than her other action films, like Tomb Raider and Wanted, is that there's not so much of the pretty in this flick.
This is not to say that Jolie doesn't look like her regular gorgeous self in Salt; I mean, dress her up in a sack and throw mud all over her, and she'd still look like a bombshell. She's Angelina Jolie, after all. But, apart from that scene where she takes off her black thong underwear to use it to cover a camera—we have to give her that—she's all tough double agent who can hold her own alongside Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt.
Several actresses have tried to go into action, and so far, only Jolie seems to be poised to reach the level Cruise, Bruce Willis, and Matt Damon have reached as action stars. I'd be really interested to see how this particular spy film franchise would turn out.
Even before Salt premiered, there was already talk of a sequel. Reports say Jolie herself is interested in being part of it again. If we're lucky—and I say this because when the film ended, I found myself hankering for more, as Salt was just about to hunt the rest of the Russian moles and kill them all—we're going to see one very, very soon.
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