SALT review
Sep 04
Unlike many who, perhaps understandably, raised a questionable eyebrow when they first saw the trailer for Salt, I was instantly excited. I knew right away I wanted to see this film. Not just because it starred Angelina Jolie; not just because it was directed by fellow Aussie Phillip Noyce; and not just because it looked like a straight-forward-good-time-no-brainer action thriller; but because it appeared to present all of these things in one sexy 100 minute package.
Boy I love it when a film delivers on its promise!
There were moments in the trailer that had me thinking the studio had given too much away in their bid to attract the majority audience. Thankfully, this wasn’t completely the case. Instead, Salt took a midpoint turn like no other film I can recall in recent times, and took the audience in a completely new direction that remarkably remained convincing and entertaining. Obviously I can’t write about what this directional change is – and, trust me, you haven’t guessed it – but it was undoubtedly a gamble that was paid off by patient and deliberate filmmaking from Noyce and his team. It could have so easily ended in shambles. The trailer shows hardly any snippets of the film beyond the midpoint. How could it? (If you’re planning on seeing it and haven’t yet, do so before someone drops the ball and reveals to you what this midpoint change is—I reckon it’d alter the viewing experience a great deal.)
Seeing as this is called Salt, please bear with me while I use a cooking motif in the next paragraph to describe the kind of film Salt brings to the table… Oh, glorious puns!
Take just a pinch of James Bond, add a huge dollop of The Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum and a cup of Mission Impossible, add a teaspoon of MacGyver (remember him?) blend thoroughly, heat on high and serve smoking hot. That’s Salt.
Now, I don’t mean to say adding up the excitement of all of those films and franchises equals this film; rather, Salt contained elements of them all in new ways with a great female lead—and a plot that allows the female lead to have real purpose. Originally, Tom Cruise was set to play the lead Salt character before he backed out. The script was re-tooled once Jolie expressed interest. This is probably the best thing that could have ever happened for the project because the female lead really helps it stand out from a pack of usually-male-leads in this genre.
The bare-bones plot (for the sake of this review and spoilers) has Jolie, as Evelyn Salt, working for the CIA and is unexpectedly told, by a Russian spy, that she is a Russian spy and will try to kill the Russian President. “Whatever, you freak,” (paraphrasing) says Jolie, and she promptly tries to leave—but the CIA aren’t convinced of her innocence and will hunt her down wherever she goes. Oh no! Luckily she’s a highly trained agent who can kick ass and get herself out of the stickiest of situations. Oh yes! That’s the first 15 minutes for you…
Turns out I’m an Angelina Jolie fan. I mean, I’ve always admired her work and been interested in her film career (as opposed to her tabloid life). There’s no doubt Jolie can act—she has an Oscar to prove it—so it’s strange to have conversations with young folk today who haven’t bothered seeing Girl, Interrupted and sight Jolie as nothing more than a boobs-and-hair action star. She’s so much more. Salt actually helps underline my point. She takes the thick drama (ala The Changeling) needed to plead her innocence to the CIA and blends it perfectly with kickass action skills required to knock guys the fuck out (ala Tomb Raider, Mr & Mrs Smith). I never questioned her performance—I was convinced of her struggle to prove her innocence and I was convinced she was in pain whenever a baddie got a cheap shot in. I mean, she’s hardly out for an Oscar in this one, is she? Turn up, go hard and look damn good doing it. She was sexy like a Bond girl only she had the lead role and was doing the cool, dangerous, exhilarating action.
The supporting cast included solid, straight-laced performances from Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor as important guys in suits. There wasn’t much room for them to move with the spotlight shining so bright on Jolie; they delivered their characters simply as required for such a story.
I enjoyed the way director Phillip Noyce didn’t throw a brick at the audience, yet still allowed everything to be explained point-blank. Aside from some excruciating flashback memories from Joile that hold on her while awful cross-fades bring them up, the film is paced and delivered near-perfectly. Everything is laid out and explained in creative ways, following the engaging plot was a breeze and aided the mountain of wonderful set-pieces. For instance, unlike the Bourne sequels, I could actually keep track of who was hitting whom during a fight sequence; all of them wonderfully orchestrated and easy to follow.
There isn’t too much else to say for a film of this ilk. It would be a waste of time trying to critique the cinematography or the subtexts, because this isn’t trying to be a thought-provoking art film. Salt is an action thriller with some great originality, and it was a blast to watch. You won’t find it on many ‘100 Movies You Must See’ lists 10 years from now, but as far as modern-day thrillers go, it’s definitely a stand-out.
Of all the overblown sequels and franchises we see in this day and age, here’s an original character in a great new action-thriller environment that’s original and deserves a second go-round. I’d definitely get in line for a sequel.
SALT
Winter review round-up
Sep 01
Spring has apparently sprung, despite the rain forecast for the weekend and the still pretty-cold nights. That can only mean one thing: it’s time to look back over the past 3 months and take stock of what movies we saw, and whether or not we liked them very much.
As usual, this season was a bit of a mixed bag. Being the American summer, a lot of big cash cow flicks were released — Sex And The City 2, The A-Team, Twilight, Predators, Inception, etc. — and only some of them were good. I like our summer better. We get stuff like Tron Legacy and Harry Potter, and we used to get The Lord Of The Rings.
Anyway, let’s get down to it!
“Quite apart from being one of the most offensive products ever manufactured, Sex And The City 2 is also outrageously surreal to watch. It is so surreal, in fact, that if asked “what was it about?” a mere ten minutes after watching it, you may find yourself hitting a mental blank (probably caused by the violent brain haemorrhage induced by how stupid the movie was). Did I already mention how forgettable it is?”
“How did so many ‘A-list’ comedians assemble in one place and not realise their jokes were falling completely flat on a deadweight script?”
“There’s no rhyme or reason to any single thing Aldous Snow does — and he does some bafflingly strange things towards the end of the film — and the sheer otherness of the central character damages Greek almost beyond repair.”
“A vast improvement over the last installment in the series, but that isn’t saying much.”
Pandorum (While the film didn’t actually see a cinematic release here, I finally got around to watching the Blu-Ray in July, so it counts. Barely)
“Right from the start of Pandorum, I felt a creeping sense of déjà vu. As the film progressed, the sense grew stronger, and stronger, until it became an overriding axiom of truth in my brain: Pandorum is exactly like a video game, but with all the gameplay removed.”
“What made the remake harder to endure was the fact that, for whatever reason, they’ve taken those same beats and stretched them out to a challenging 140 minutes. Almost 2-and-a-half hours is a damn long time to wait for something you know is coming.”
“It’s all here. Big guns, big fights, big arms, square jaws, car chases, explosions, sexy ladies in distress and, of course, witty one-liners. There’s even a bad guy ‘monologing’ at the end to complete the package. It’s all been done before and there’s nothing revolutionary for The Expendables to hang its hat on.”
“A dark streak permeates the plot, an aspect that probably would have helped the film if it had stronger characters, but in reality serves to alienate the audience from what little good Splice has to offer.”
“When there’s parachuting tanks, stereotypically jaded-but-still-in-love ex-girlfriends, and some jerkish CIA types involved, you know the bulk of the audience’s focus is going to be on the action rather than the characters. Here The A-Team is something of a mixed bag.”
“I can’t believe it’s the same kid from Kick-Ass. I’m glad I saw Kick-Ass before I saw Nowhere Boy, because I think that comparison helped underline how spectacularly perfect his performance is.”
“The performances are all — miraculously for this type of film – passable at least, and great at best. Adrien Brody stands out, of course, but Laurence Fishburne’s Apocalypse Now-informed performance as a bloke who’s been on the wrong planet for too long is refreshingly fun to watch.”
“I must admit that I was hoping to laugh out loud more. Heck, I think the audience I saw it with– a mix of mothers, fathers teenagers and early-twenties couples, wanted to laugh more, too– but we never did.”
“It’s clear that director James Mangold is fluent in the language of cinema. He conducts the ballet between screen and speakers, actors and audience with startling precision.”
“Every shot, every cut, every sound effect and musical cue is distinctly Nolan-ish: the sound design is sharp and punchy, the visuals are moody and gorgeous, the music is as subtle as a brick and twice as threatening, and the performances are exemplary across the board. In fact, the only real problem here is the script.”
“Pilgrim’s strongest selling card is its humour, which, thankfully, isn’t content with the kind of geek jokes that make people like me roll their eyes.”
Today marks ReelThinker’s nine month anniversary. Incidentally, this is approximately the period of time required to cook a functioning human being the old-fashioned way. Probably not relevant, but worth mentioning anyway. Thanks for reading, and here’s to another 9 months!
For previous review round-ups, go here:
New red band MACHETE trailer ‘HEADS WILL ROLL’ is incredibly violent, bloody and sexy (NSFW)
Sep 01
I don’t need to type much here; this new red band trailer for Machete speaks for itself. Severed heads, blood-splattered walls, big guns, bare asses and explosions. Appropriately titled ‘Heads Will Roll‘, this trailer delivers what it promises.
What started as a faux trailer in Grindhouse might end up a cult classic feature film in its own right, if these cool trailers and posters are anything to go by. I guess we’ll know for sure soon.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Once Upon A Time In Mexico), Machete stars Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan and Cheech Marin.
Machete is released this Friday (4 September) in the U.S.
Turns out that AVATAR re-release didn’t do too well
Aug 30
With the DVD release mere months old, another DVD release a couple of months down the track, and an already congested sampling of 3D films currently in show (Step Up 3D, Piranha 3D, Toy Story 3D), it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that a lot of people skipped return trip to Pandora.
Avatar managed to drum up $4 million over the past weekend, a paltry amount compared to its original $2.7 billion run. It only played on 800 screens, though, and managed a pretty-good $5000 per-screen average. But what happened to all those people that bragged about having seen Avatar 17 times? The folk that bought the DVD and Blu-Ray on opening day, the folk that dragged everyone they knew to go and see the movie, the folk that flooded the internet with hyperbolic fanboyism? Shouldn’t all those funs have bumped up Avatar‘s re-release gross?
My theory is that those people represent the vocal minority. Avatar didn’t make $2.7 billion the first time around from fanatical repeat-viewings; it made it from one-off punters, people curious to see what all the fuss was about, and from people who heard the movie was the second coming of Christ. Those people, casual moviegoers, probably don’t care to see a movie twice in the same year; if they do, they’ve probably already got the DVD and don’t want to have to shell out $20 plus silly glasses to see a movie they already own again.The $4 million, in this theory, comes mostly from those vocal but outnumbered fans, and not from the bulk of Avatar‘s core audience.
Well, that’s just my theory. Maybe if it had released on more than 800 American screens Avatar would have seen a greater return.
The Avatar re-release is in cinemas right now. Go see it quick, because it probably won’t last long.
New HARRY POTTER 7 character images don’t look anything like they did in my head
Aug 28
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 will open in November and make a gajillion dollars. In the meantime, Warner Bros. is doing everything it can to make sure you contribute your fair share to its bid for global domination when the time comes.
To that end, here’s a series of new character images from Harry Potter 7. There’s Bill Nighy in there (as the popular but ineffective new Minister of Magic) and Rhys Ifans (as loveable nutcase Luna Lovegood’s old man), and some other guy I don’t recognise playing a character I’ve probably forgotten. I think I imagined someone more along the lines of Eric Idle for the role of Lovegood, but Nighy’s a good choice for the Minister character. I think.
Part 1 of The Deathly Hallows hits on 18 November 2010 (19th in US and UK); Part 2 comes out in July 2011.
As always, click an image to embiggen. Go here for even more images.
Katie Holmes and Al Pacino join Adam Sandler’s next comedy JACK AND JILL
Aug 26
It must be a superb script or a hefty paycheck that have convinced Katie Holmes and Al Pacino to sign on to Adam Sandler‘s next comedy Jack & Jill. Or, perhaps they didn’t see Grown Ups? I watched Grown Ups, and I did not enjoy what it offered; even for the genre it belongs to, it was a monumental failure.
Jack & Jill is being directed Grown Ups director Dennis Duggan and it’s about Jack, a family man, who must deal with his twin sister Jill, who visits for Thanksgiving and won’t leave. The catch? Adam Sandler is playing both Jack and Jill… Because we all know how funny it is when guys dress up as ladies. Lord, spare us all.
Katie will play Adam Sandler’s wife in the film and Pacino will apparently be playing himself– which sounds kinda neat on paper but it’s still the kind of film I’d rather not see him in.
OPINIONS COUNT