SALT (USA 2010) **
Directed by Phillip Noyce

The new action Angelina Jolie vehicle SALT begins with high expectations with a scantily clad Evelyn Salt (Jolie), a CIA tortured and ordered out of a country.  The skimpy plot involves the testing of Salt’s loyalty when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy.

Is she?  No genius needed to guess the answer, or to comprehend the rest of the film either.  For one, there is no more story.  Salt fights off all her enemies, mostly without weapons, using kicks and fists.  She jumps from vehicle to vehicle, is chased all over the globe.  How can such a person perform such miraculous feats without possessing any super powers?  As the film progresses, SALT kicks away to prove her innocence and reveal the true traitor but not until also revealing how awfully boring and lazy her latest movie is.

The script does not even bother giving the heroine any one-liners or any of the characters any punch lines.  SALT is classic textbook on how not to make a summer action blockbuster.  Don’t bother with a proper villain, a climax, any humour or suspense, just lots of action bits strung together, never mind any special effects or even the customary boring romance.  Just take one big name star and hope the film makes it at the box-office.

What has happened to Aussie director Phillip Noyce who put Australia on the film map and made on of the best Australian movies of all time NEWSFRONT?  Hollywood had taken him in with the result of him directing flops like THE SAINT, SLIVER and this one.

The ads scream: Who is SALT?  It would more appropriately scream: What IS SALT?  SALT is the most flavourless movie so far, this year!