3 out of 5

Director: Phillip Noyce

Is it fun? Yes. Pinned to your seat fun – worthy of the current $12 movie ticket rate? …No. But fun enough that when your friends are debating about what to watch, its a satisfactory compromise. Salt stars Angelina Jolie as a CIA agent who is suddenly accused of being a Russian sleeper spy. Is she? Isnt she? Part of the energy of the movie is that the protagonist is kept mostly in the same shade of darkness as the audience, so we feel as caught up in the twisty machinations of Salt as Jolie. Now, smartly, the movie is not as smugly detached as Mission: Impossible and is also not as dreadfully heavy as the Bourne series, and yet Jolie comes off believably pitch-perfect in the role, throwing her all into what couldve been a fluffy seat for a square-jawed hero. This, combined with its insane forward momentum (the movie is primarily one long chase), is mostly what keeps the movie elevated above the action norm: that its played to entertain, but it takes its movie world seriously. Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer and director Phillip Noyce dont try to linger too long on big emotional scenes and plot-points, and yet the action is kept mostly organic and stream-lined so that its always moving and yet followable. There are plenty of points to look over at a friend and chuckle at how ridiculous some moments are, but this is a much better, and more respectful example of good popcorn fare than Michael Bay movies.