Salt in the Wounds

Salt starts with Angelina Jolie getting beaten to a bloody pulp. It pretty much ends that way too. You get the impression that someone enjoys this.

Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who has held down a desk since she was tortured by the North Koreans. Things are going pretty smoothly until a Russian defector comes in with a story about a plot to kill Russian president Medyedev at the American vice president's funeral. I didn't even know Cheney was sick.

The kicker - the assassin's name is Evelyn Salt. So Jolie goes on the run to clear her name, in the simplest possible way. She goes underground and heads for the funeral, the last place they would think of looking for her.

I am going to try not to spoil any plot twists - you can probably figure them all out mathematically, based on permutations and statistics. Or when Liev Shreiber shows up. I won't be giving anything away if I say most of the movie is about Jolie running, jumping and kicking butt.

I'm a big fan of Jolie, but I have to say, she really doesn't move that well for an action hero. I saw a review of Salt (Ebert?) to the effect that it makes Run Lola Run look like My Dinner with Andre. But Franka Potente looks strong and athletic when she is running. Angelina Jolie looks like she's used to wearing high heels.

Still, most of the action is editing and special effects, and she looks good, even if she can't move well. (Actually, she has a signature move, where she kicks off a wall to get a little height, then kicks someone's head. It's not bad.) And she sure can take a punch.

The last movie we saw her in was Wanted, where she looked emaciated and heavily tattooed. In this movie, her look is bruised and covered in blood. I'm not sure where she's going with this.