Film Review : Salt

This high-octane spy thriller may be preposterous but it's also preposterously entertaining.

Salt, the propulsive new thriller from Phillip Noyce (Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games), has been dubbed “Bourne with boobs,” but that label isn’t entirely accurate. In the role of Evelyn Salt, a CIA staffer hunted by her own agency after a Russian defector fingers her in a plot to murder Russia’s president, Angelina Jolie keeps her two most potent weapons holstered, hidden under pantsuits and trenchcoats and the various other components of a super-spy wardrobe that proudly emphasizes function over flash.
But flash is one thing Salt never lacks for. Its breathless cat-and-mouse game hits full-throttle almost from the outset, when a former KGB officer named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) stumbles into a CIA interrogation room and begins spilling details of a vast conspiracy. Back in the ‘70s, hardline elements of the Soviet regime launched an ambitious new front in the Cold War, flooding the western world with orphans trained to infiltrate the security complexes of their adopted homelands and wait patiently for the order to initiate a series of assassinations intended to trigger a devastating nuclear clash between the superpowers, from which the treacherous Reds would emerge triumphant.



Noyce keeps all the plates spinning marvelously, executing hair-raising action sequences, brutal fight scenes and walk-and-talk politics with equal confidence. He tosses in a little of the Greengrass-inspired shaky cam during some fight sequences, but unlike nearly everyone else who mimics that style, Noyce can actually pull it off. Jolie has brought on board her longtime stunt coordinator Simon Crane, and she's never looked more convincing as both a badass and a human being. Noyce's confidence in his leading lady (the two collaborated ten years ago on The Bone Collector), combined with Robert Elswit's fluid cinematography and Crane's fearless stunt choreography, invent Salt as a believably female Bourne or even Bond. At 35 Jolie is a little older than the typical female action hero, but that makes Salt all the more compelling as she repeatedly pulls off the impossible in her battle against the world.

Chiwetel Ejiofor and Liev Schreiber are perfectly tense and well-used in their supporting roles, but Salt is Jolie's vehicle, and she owns every frame. Salt was famously rewritten to star a male protagonist, and it was Jolie's influence that kept the character from ever abusing her sex appeal, and allowed her to become increasingly dirty and disheveled as the movie reaches its action climax. We're a long way from Tomb Raider, and its encouraging to see Jolie use her immense starpower to create a female heroine who successfully exists apart from the male-dominated world she must struggle against. Salt the movie is refreshing in its old-school familiarity, but Salt the character is remarkable and new. It's a powerful combination that makes for some pretty ideal entertainment. It’s well-known that Jolie wasn’t the first choice to star in Salt, joining the project only after Tom Cruise dropped out, citing the story’s growing similarities to the Mission: Impossible films. But she’s more than just a capable replacement; she’s a welcome upgrade over Cruise, not least because she’s over a decade younger (and a few inches taller), than her predecessor. Should Brad Bird require a pinch-hitter for Ethan Hunt, he knows where to look.

Spy thrillers, by definition, trade in the preposterous, and the principal function of the blockbuster is to entertain. In that regard, Salt more than fulfills its charge. Noyce wisely keeps the story moving at pace that allows little time for asking uncomfortable questions or poking holes in the film’s frail plot. And he has an able partner in the infinitely versatile Jolie, who, having already exhibited formidable action-hero chops in Wanted and the Tomb Raider films, proves remarkably adept at the spy game as well.

Film Review : Knight and Day

If there’s one thing that has significantly changed the landscape of escapist filmmaking, it’s the move away from star-driven vehicles to franchise driven ones.  Special effects, easily branded imagery and familiar rhythms are the elements that sell an audience on a franchise. Often there is a lack of energy and unpredictability that comes as a result of this trade-off. Filmmakers aren’t eager to break that contract with the viewer that promises what they are going to get is what they paid to see. Unfortunately, for the movie going audience, what we often get are pictures where the leads could be interchangeable.

Knight and Day looks to be a promising film, with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz leading the way. Also, there's just something about action-comedies that tickle us down to the bone (although we cannot say that the majority are genuinely great films). The pairing of Tom and Cameron seems to be perfect for this kind of film. Both are honed action stars with Cruise having countless action films to boot while Diaz having experience most prominently from the "Charlie's Angels" films. You also cannot discount the fact that both these stars featured successful comedy films. Can this dynamic duo bring life to a genre that is more miss than hit?

Knight and Day is the pinnacle of studio laziness: two pretty people forcefully crammed into an empty vessel in the hopes that their celebrity will dupe more than a few rubes into buying a ticket. This movie is lifeless; it has no pulse from beginning to end. I’m not naive. I know why movies like this exist and I know that I am not the target audience. But what really burns me about Knight and Day is that it fails to deliver on the one note on which movies like this typically bank: cheap romance.

Most of the absence of heat between them is a product of two veteran movie stars who obviously could not care less about the film they are making. If you are a fan of either Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz, I would highly suggest taking a trip to Madame Tussauds and staring at their wax likenesses because they will offer more skilled performances cast in wax than they did on screen. If Cruise’s performance were any more phoned in, AT&T would’ve sponsored the film. To counterbalance that, Diaz is a complete doorknob. Her “fish out of water” routine more often than not devolves into completely inauthentic stupidity and emotionless non-reactions. And I’m sorry, Tom, but even you have to exert yourself just an iota to be charming.

All of the action scenes have a kind of gee-whiz, tongue-in-cheek quality to them. We aren’t supposed to take them seriously or have them jar the back of our skull loose. They have been so skillfully constructed to reveal the seams, that we can only conclude following the smirking lead of Cruise that we are meant to be amused by them, and to laugh at the over-the-top nature of it all. Either way, it doesn’t matter much. Unlike the crunch and munch of Michael Bay’s insanely loud and depressingly stupid blockbusters, James Mangold’s movie pops, snaps and zings it’s way to the finish line, like a pinball machine with real human beings at the center.

Knight and Day is just deathly afraid of breaking out of the blockbuster mode, of providing anything risky or strange or out of the ordinary. Being ordinary is probably not the worst thing in the world, but it’s pretty difficult to build up any real enthusiasm for such a project. The most one can say about the film is that it’s competently constructed, that it does indeed fulfill the checklist of things that one must expect from a big summer blockbuster. That makes the movie a middling entertainment at best, doomed to be watched and immediately forgotten.

Film Review : The A-Team

In the final days of the Iraq War, members of an elite commando unit were sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from four maximum security prisons to take revenge on the man who framed them. If you are having a boring summer at the movies, you need to see The A-Team

Instead of assaulting us with nonstop action and then having the audacity to mask itself as being high art, The A-Team embraces just how ludicrous the action sequences are and makes absolutely no apologies for it. That’s not to say, though, the movie has nothing to offer beyond the explosions and midair collisions. In fact, what makes The A-Team such a damn good film is the clever underscore that complements every moment of mesmerizing destruction. Joe Carnahan, along with the other writers, gives us moments that subtly poke fun at the outlandishness of what we’re seeing that not only makes the absurd action forgivable but immediately elevates the material above the typical summer fodder. 

Carnahan recognized that, given the tone of both the series and his last film (Smokin' Aces), the action scenes needed to flow uninterrupted, and here it's very streamlined, only pausing briefly to give us hilarious interactions between the larger-than-life characters before diving head-first back into the explosive fray. Until the very end of the film, each plan is carried out before our eyes as it is being hashed out to neutralize any lacking in the pace. It would be easy to then accuse The A-Team of being front-loaded, given the slow build to the final sequence, but I would argue that is merely a nod to the evolution of Face’s character as a leader and that it never really loses steam.

What really sells this film, however, is its cast. Like the original quartet of chaos, each actor brings something fantastic to the table. Bradley Cooper, as Face, has that inescapably charming swagger and confidence we’ve come to expect from him; Liam Neeson, unsurprisingly, is the perfect blend of in-the-trenches badass and cool-as-ice leader. Even Rampage Jackson, in the role made famous by a guy donning the entire payload of Ft. Knox around his neck (that'd be Mr. T), turns in a respectably tough performance with a few moments of decent hubris. But it’s Sharlto Copley who really steals the show as Howlin’ Mad Murdock. True to his character's moniker, Copley cranks up the lunacy and plays Murdock with a hilariously reckless abandon that mirrors the tone of the entire film.

A balls-out actioner that's far better than it has any right to be.

Film Review : The Karate Kid

Much has changed in the update. Daniel Larusso is now Dre Parker; California’s San Fernando Valley is now Beijing, China; Mr. Miyagi is now Mr. Han; and karate is now kung fu. Most of the story beats and thematic elements, however, are essentially the same. After his single mother (Taraji P. Henson) gets a job transfer, 12-year-old Dre (Jaden Smith) is forced to move from his native Detroit to the unfamiliar climes of Beijing, where he’s besieged by a local group of pubescent fascists after being caught innocently flirting with a pretty schoolmate.

The case for nepotism in this new Karate Kid is not without merit. Though allegedly 11 years old, Smith doesn’t look a day over 10, and appears jarringly undersized for a 12-year-old. Seeing the baby-faced lad (he definitely takes after his mom in the looks department) get repeatedly brutalized by adolescent thugs twice his size gets uncomfortable, as do later scenes of him training shirtless, his torso the size of Chan’s forearm. 

But it’s a minor quibble. In truth, Smith surpasses his predecessor Ralph Macchio in both acting ability and martial arts proficiency. Whereas Daniel-San’s fighting scenes in the original Karate Kid require a suspension of disbelief that diminishes his eventual triumph at the All-Valley Karate Championships. Smith’s moves are both more authentic and more athletic. Moreover, he has the good sense not to collapse hysterically into a wailing heap at the slightest touch from an opponent, as Macchio so famously did. 

The Karate Kid is every bit an unabashed crowd-pleaser,  which isn’t necessarily such a bad thing in a summer movie season that has thus far given audiences precious little to cheer for. At two-and-a-half hours, it takes far too long to get going and would have benefited from a more assured hand behind the camera. Director Harald Zwart’s overemphasis on the bullying and fish-out-of-water elements becomes redundant, and the dialogue and culture-clash jokes border on embarrassing at times. But the meat of the story, the bond that forms between an unlikely kung fu teacher and his equally unlikely student, is undeniably affecting.

Film Review : Iron Man 2

In his second turn as Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. recasts the billionaire inventor as the Dean Martin of industrialists, strutting from one star-studded event to another on a bacchanalian victory tour, dishing out choice one-liners and stirring up minor controversies for his exasperated babysitters, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle), to quell. Whether gloating about his achievements at a defense industry expo, upbraiding Senators during a congressional hearing, or getting wasted and donning his armored powersuit to play DJ at his birthday party, there's no telling what kind of madcap mischief Tony Stark will get himself into next!

The Tony Stark Comedy Tour, for what it’s worth, is a supremely entertaining ride (credit screenwriter Justin Theroux at the very least with crafting the genre’s most quotable film of all time), but I’m fairly certain Iron Man 2 is supposed to be an action film, not the Marvel Follies Variety Show. Surely there must be a supervillain lurking in the shadows, a frighteningly powerful menace preparing to unleash its destructive might upon the world?

There is well, kind of. The primary antagonist of Iron Man 2, Mickey Rourke's hulking Ivan Vanko (aka Whiplash), is certainly a fearsome beast, baring his blinged-out grill and electrified tentacles, but he gets all of five minutes of meaningful screen time in the sequel hardly enough to establish him as a worthy foe for the great Iron Man. Perhaps producers found Rourke’s chosen dialect, learned from John Malkovich's Rounders School of Exaggerated Russian Accents to be less compelling in post-production.

More likely they became enamored with Sam Rockwell in the role of Justin Hammer, Stark’s resentful business rival and Whiplash’s principal financial backer. The only problem is, Rockwell’s Hammer is a venture capitalist, not a comic book supervillain, and every second he spends on the screen, as enjoyable as it is, is a second that could have been devoted to dimensionalizing Rourke’s character or crafting a badly-needed action sequence to enliven the talky second act.  Thankfully, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. arrive at his compound to stage a kind of intervention, bearing a powerful dual-pronged Deus Ex Machina device that instantly wrests our hero from his para-suicidal stupor.

Given that Iron Man 2’s director and writer have both spent the bulk of their movie careers employed as actors, it comes as little surprise that they chose to focus the action on Downey and Rockwell, as the two rank head and shoulders above the rest of the cast. I just wish they found room in between the one-liners for a few more explosions.

Film Review : The Losers

On paper, Sylvain White’s ensemble thriller The Losers  doesn’t display much promise. Its budget (around $25 million) is miniscule by action-movie standards; its cast, apart from female lead Zoe Saldana, is unexceptional; and its plot, about a group of disgraced Special Forces operatives who seek revenge against the shady arms dealer (Jason Patric) who had them framed, is hardly original. And yet The Losers makes for a surprisingly entertaining ride, an apt prelude to the summer blockbuster season. Call it The B-Team.

Though based on a graphic novel, The Losers boasts no superheroes, just a quintet of mercenaries with complementary skills and catchy names like Cougar and Pooch. Presumed dead after being double-crossed during a black ops mission in the Bolivian jungle, they languish in a third-world limbo until a mysterious woman named Aisha (Saldana) approaches their leader, Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), with an enticing opportunity.

The Losers establishes a lively pace from the outset, and with the exception of one appallingly disjointed planning scene, director White adroitly handles the challenges of a plus-size cast. Save for a few extraneous twists that mar the film’s second half, screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Peter Berg maintain a straightforward storyline, keeping the tone determinedly light (always best when dealing with the constraints of a PG-13 rating) but never too cartoonish.

Morgan, who previously underwhelmed in Zack Snyder’s doomed Watchmen adaptation, isn’t the ideal choice to headline the film’s male cast, and he appears hopelessly overmatched by Saldana. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if The Losers didn’t try to sell us on a hastily-hatched romantic subplot between the two, which serves only to provide us with a few scantily-clad glimpses of the sultry Avatar star. Needless to say, there are worse sins a filmmaker can commit.

The only aspect of The Losers that truly vexed us was the performance of one of its castmembers. I doubt that Joe Johnston, director of the upcoming Captain America adaptation, caught a screening of this film before he chose to award Chris Evans the coveted starring role in the big-budget comic-book flick. Because if he had, I’m certain he’d have chosen differently. Evans’ clownish wiseass routine is instantly and perpetually grating. Even when delivering the most innocuous of line readings, he radiates a natural douchiness that no Super Serum can fix.

Film Review : Clash of the Titans

Young boys will like it, but the rest of us will be frustrated by the storytelling, the shaky camerawork and the dubiously effective 3D presentation, which distracts more than it offers.

The new Clash of the Titans mimics the original film’s epic ethos and preference for spectacle over all else, but its storyline differs dramatically. Perseus is still the half-breed product of a one-night stand between the god Zeus (Liam Neeson) and a human hottie, and he still must to defeat the monstrous Kraken in order to save the lovely Princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos). Almost everything in between, however, has been altered, and not necessarily for the better. Strong-willed Perseus (Sam Worthington) braves an obstacle course of giant scorpions, gorgons, and other freak of nature laid out for him by the whispery fiend Hades (Ralph Fiennes), but it’s never quite clear why he bothers with it at all, since what’s at stake is a princess he isn’t particularly interested in and a community of people he doesn’t really know and who, frankly, don’t seem all that worth saving.

Fans of the original 1981 version of Clash of the Titans may or may not enjoy this remake, that said, though, you don't have to be a fan of the original to come on board because this is simply blockbuster entertainment in its purest form. If you leave your brain at the door and just fancy scenes of mythical creatures and testosterone fuelled fight scenes, then you're in for a good time because it's disposable fun. An effort to relive one of the greatest mythologies in modern filmmaking to compensate for the new generation ahead with high adventure fun.

The CGI in the film isn't too bad either , director Louis Leterrier (Unleashed, The Transporter 2, The Incredible Hulk) does a good job of bringing some of the mythical creatures to life, and some are given a nightmarish touch which may frighten some of the younger end of the audience.

But the biggest misfire on this film is to release it in 3D, it's a completely pointless decision. The decision was made retroactively after the film was made so it doesn't actually bring anything to the table by being converted to 3D, it's not been filmed with this in mind, it adds nothing to the stunning recreation of the Greek world they've created and it's a real let down. Big tip: watch it on regular 2D instead.