MOVIE: Salt

This post is filled with spoilers! If you do not want plot twists revealed, it would be in your best interest to stop reading now. SO. Liev Schrieber on The Daily Show TOTALLY spoiled me for an important plot twist, and I was still surprised by the movie, because I honestly expected Evelyn Salt to be NOT a sleeper agent, and that her whole thing with the Russian president was supposed to be a) giving the finger to the CIA for not trusting her and b) protecting the Russian president anyway. The twist that she really was a sleeper agent? I did not expect that! In hindsight, some things I heard make it seem like it should have been obvious, but NO. I was surprised! And then I started worrying that she really had assassinated the Russian president, and then was relieved and vindicated when it was revealed he had been spider venomed instead. I was really impressed that, aside from the first scene, they did not show Evelyn all sexed up and slinky at all. (And really, not even in that first scene, but she was in her underwear, so.) She was just doing her thing, being awesomely badass, and if perhaps Angelina Jolie wears clothes very well, I wouldn't have expected them to put ANY star in bulky, non-fitting clothing in the first place. And WOW, Evelyn Salt is badass. Terrifying. Wondrous. Anyway, despite the supposedly-tension-filled ending, obviously the audience is not going to worry about her as she runs awkwardly through the forest, because despite her injuries she is clearly smarter and more badass than the entirety of Russian AND American intelligence and law enforcement THROUGHOUT HISTORY, and also COMBINED, so yeah. I look forward to the sequels! As obviously the producers are hoping there will be! Y'know, some day I will return to writing actual review-shaped reviews of things, rather than adrenaline-filled babble that I find amusing upon reread. Well, maybe not solely adrenaline-filled babble. Something like: Despite the casting of Angelina Jolie, whose movie roles often come laden with pornogrified violence, Salt is a surprisingly sex-free action movie that allows its title character to be a character, rather than the oft-caricatured "female character." Jolie inhabits the complex role--one that requires wistful nostalgia and workplace ennui as well as rage--and nothing is earmarked with the particular, infuriating traits that Hollywood often uses to cage its women, in action, drama, or comedy. And yes, Jolie continues to be scorchingly hot.