I checked. Can't believe no one's reviewed this film.
It was fairly decent for the genre.


Made a buck, too.
Budget $110 million
Gross revenue $311,011,944

61% approval @ Rotten Tomatoes, so... fair.

When I first heard of the film the wiki brief on its sordid history already appealed to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(2010_film)#Production
Writen for a male lead.
TCruise attached.
TCruise bailed.
AJolie attached.
Re-written to accomodate the gender swap.
Fine.
But the story goes much deeper than changing Edward Salt to Evelyn Salt and is key to this business of re-writing big heavy sequences for a variety of reasons.

Well, you guys oughtta know I'll be hitting the DVD extra features for director commentary pretty well, so here it comes.

- This is the director Noyce's fiftieth film.

- On-site advisor hired on set, not ahead of time, to choreograph the prisoner exchange. This means whatever homework the writer did didn't matter in the end. Director was quite willing to change... anything.

- Lead protagonist gender change from male to female lead to a completly different change in the third act due to Jolie's insistance. In other words, consider some actors carry the biz-weight to rewrite your work.
Actor says you gotta re-write.

- Even though the director didn't write this story he discusses how he repeats many of his own personal central ideas. Ha!
Previously he stated how he gravitates toward certain spy stories despite reading many of them. The point being that the director will assimilate the writer's work as his own work.
Zero credit goes to the creator of "the idea" for the kernal of a story.
All the credit goes to the developer of "the idea".
This is a reiteration of the maxim "ideas are a dime a dozen".

- Jolie, director and writer (Wimmer) worked out a lot of the rewrite of the script. One week at Jolie's place in France and then over months and months afterwards.

- Director goes into an in depth introduction of the elements of film sound and music.

- With permission of SAG, 500 blow-up dolls were used in the church scene with costumes and wigs. I'm surprised that was cheaper than CGIing them in.

- Regarding online piracy, there are three attitudes:
1. OPTIMISTS advocate piracy fosters interest in the film industry
2. There will always be those willing to pay for commercial events just to collectively socialize.
3. PESSIMISTS justly fear as the introduction of worldwide broadband quality achieves a certain level of consistancy the industry will be decimated.

- Studio budget constraints forced the "post church, Salt arrest, escape from police car" sequence to be re-written from a "sixty-story elevator ride to helicopter extraction, window washing scaffold escape" sequence, saving millions.
Studio says you gotta re-write.

- Censorship reasons dictated the director's "preferred" Salt-reunited-with-husband scene be substituted with an alternate version. Instead of a brutal drowning he is shot.
MPAA says you gotta re-write.

- Took months of work to figure a solution to re-write the script to end Act III in the White House. Salt's plan to stop Day-X was to make herself an essential element of the plot.

- Director stated a certain scene in the script didn't have enough material to create "something really exciting!"
SFX developer saved the sequence. In other words, script went through the studio and director with known flaws. Even after re-writing.

- Director comments on technical elements (such as Day-X, the nuclear football and bunker beneath the White House) as if their credibility needs to be established.
In other words, the depth of homework for even a big budget film is pretty thin.
These are basic elements of story construct, to me. Real basic.

- "Choking Winter" scene is impromtu, not scripted.

- Director's version has Winter character kill the POTUS to insert Russian KA agent into Presidency.

Bones.
Write a good story with good bones.
A lot of the "decoration" is gonna get changed.
Some pretty large sequences may get ditched for various reasons.

You've gotta love the MPAA... huh?  

Yeah, I had to go see this one.  It's Angelina Jolie.  Overall I enjoyed it.  Quite entertaining.  Some good action sequences.  I loved the freeway scene.   It was somewhat short on story for sure.  It felt like they made up things as they went along and didn't go back and check for accuracy.   Because too be honest, some of it didn't make sense.

'Salt' is one of those movies not to be taken too seriously.  A sequel is in the works from what I understand.

Thanxs for bringing this one up, RayW.

Ghostie

As long as you kinda check your brain in at the lobby this was a decent movie.
The story didn't have monster holes in it. It's just that it had some credibility issues, which if you could ignore - enjoy away!

First, I have a problem with AngieRexic Jolie kickin' @ss.


She's kinda past her Laura Croft physique in life.
The personna is there. The muscle mass isn't.

* * * SPOILERS GALORE! (At a screenplay site, of all places!) * * *

In real life, I'd be surprised if she has the muscle mass and lung capacity to lug a back pack with pistols, ammo clips, a few pounds of C4, detonators and other cr@p (at least twenty pounds of BS I'd guess) run across the plaza, down the street, down the subway, back up the subway, down the street again, hide N crouch, jump truck to truck a few times - while shot in the side.


And then she MaiThai-judo-chops police and security team after team after team with her magic stick arms.

It was awfully nice of the North Koreans to beat her up with her bra and panties still on.


The arrested-in-the-police-car-escape sequence was pretty funny, but I kept wondering when the H the airbag was gonna deploy. After she droped it off the bridge. Of course.
Ever been in a minor traffic accident? Neck and back and shoulders hurt like h3ll the next day and for a few days. After all of that she should be paralyzed for a week. Whatever...


IDK WTH wazzup with the fur hat & poncho as she sauntered toward the bad-guy spy at the dingy barge. WTH was she all dressed up for? It's a dingy barge.


I was not impressed with the masculinization makeup at the White House.
It looked like pretty guy to me. WTH? Try again.


Why would a trained CIA bad@ss keep dumping ammo into a bullet-proof window?

I'm pretty sure two helicopters could find a person swimming across the Potomac. WTH?

So... it was okay. Best if you just shaddap and go along with it.
Liked DCraig in CASINO ROYALE better, which is the character she was gunning for.

MPAA: Just goes to show you how silly they are. You can shoot a person but drowning is too disturbing. Dude's dead. WTH's it matter? Likely it was the way Noyce chose to shoot it and he'd rather switch the scene than edit it down to looming heads over bubbling water off camera. D@mn directors.

SALT II?
Sure.
As long as it makes money...
I get a kick out of folks raggin' on those two guys that do the EPIC MOVIE et al farce parodies.
They're bankin' bucks for everyone. Why even bother griping about it?
Pez and Bubbalicios may not be nutritious but they're still in business, so... gopherit. Franchise it.
Bet Noyce won't be back, though. ( <-- LOL! That was just an educated guess)http://ramascreen.com/tag/phillip-noyce/

I liked the film, I did not love it. I did like the action scenes a lot, and there was a point where I thought Angie's character was, in fact, the antag and we been rooting for her for the first 40 minutes. But her motives for stopping Day X was justified. Did I buy the big "surprise"? No. I thought it was cheap to discover who was who, so to speak.

I'm unsure what Ray's beef is with Noyce discussing techs and sound. I don't understand Ray's beef with the alteration with Wimmer's script. As pointed out, he was a party to those rewrites.

I'm unsure what Ray's beef is with Noyce discussing techs and sound. I don't understand Ray's beef with the alteration with Wimmer's script. As pointed out, he was a party to those rewrites.

I didn't express a beef against anyone for anything other than casting a stick girl for an action hero super spy. And maybe some of the story details were liberally applied with movie magic.

Techs and sound are WHY I pay such close attention to the extra features!
Certainly don't have a beef with those.
I love 'em!

What I'm driving at, and you'll consistently derive from these reviews I post, are that it's the foundation of the story that draws a director, producer, studio, screenwriter or even an actor to attach or purchase options or rights.

It's not just small, weenie little lines that get ditched.
WHOLE ENTIRE BIG sequences are re-written.
At best - included in deleted scenes.
At worst - trashed altogether.

Kurt Wimmer fabricated an adaptation of a novel.
That in itself required some heavy re-working.
That version passed through the studio gut and when it came out STILL got re-wrote.
And then it got re-wrote again and again and even some of the stuff that got to the screen, like the 'Choking Winter' scene, was impromptu and never written.

Of course Wimmer was party/victim to all or most of this.
I don't have a beef with him or the process.
I'm pointing out the process so that we (or maybe just I) might acknowledge it, move on and focus more on story and less on the format nazi thing which I admit has run it's course through me.
I'm over it. Like bad potato salad from a church picnic.

The WRITE CLUB showdown thing is perfect example of what a real world scenario might be.
A $2 million action sequence just got cut to a $1 million action sequence by the studio.
You have a two hour lunch break to re-wite it.
Go.
Why?
WGA said so.
Your future and reputation in the biz says so.
Write or be replaced.

See?

No beef with anyone.
Might explain why you're unsure.

Please go back and edit your perception of what I wrote.
Pretty please?

---

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley You mean rewrite it, don't you?

Nope.
I'm quite sure I meant edit your perception.

Quoted from RayW Please go back and edit your perception of what I wrote. Pretty please?

You mean rewrite it, don't you?

Ray brought up some of the issues that bugged me throughout this film.  Jolie looks like she weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet, and she's smashing guys who run about 250.

She killed so many innocent people in this film, it was impossible to root for her.  

All of the action scenes were over the top.  But firing clips into bulletproof glass at point blank range?  The ricochet would have turned her into swiss cheese.

It was slickly made, but I guessed all the major plot points early on.  They tried too hard to make Liev Schreiber look like a good guy in the first act.  I also assumed she had used the spider venom on the Russian president.

Ah well.  Not too bad.  But please no sequel.

Again, all good points. I did say I disliked the plot twist at the end (Liev's character revealed!) and I started to like the idea of Salt being a villain who we at first we think is mistaken for one. The more I think it over, the more I realize I liked the film less. Maybe they were better off just remaking Shiri...

I thought this film was overwhelmingly mediocre and forgettable.
I did read an earlier draft of the script with a much better ending.
She facilitates her won escape from a hospital and goes out for revenge.
I disliked her captor allowing her to escape from the helicopter.
Salt was more interesting when she was empowered and driving the plot.
Not some dweeb chasing her saying go get em girl, lame.
Shiri is a superior film in every way, very character driven and intense.

I like the soundtrack by James Newton Howard.
I listened to it quite a bit when working on Lie Detector.
As long as you don't stop to think about, it's a decent way to spend 90 minutes.

E.D.

Quoted from RayW I checked. Can't believe no one's reviewed this film. It was fairly decent for the genre.

Too many movies, not enough people to care.

I looked for reviews of other films I wanted to comment on but nobody has posted a review for them as of yet.

Angelina Jolie can sell a movie, that is why they cast her in these roles.

I would jump at the chance to see her as Lara Croft again eventhough I know that they are recasting the role for a reboot.

Her and Milla Jovovich are two boney broads who are cast in heroic roles and the audience at large love to watch them kicking ass. My guess is they are a change from Arnie and Vin Diesel type heroes and female.

To say I was underwhelmed here is a HUGE understatement.

It actually took me 4 nights to get through this,a s I literally fell asleep the first 3, and almost on the 4th.  Pitiful!

I liked how things opened up...alot.  I was pretty sure the movie was going to rock, but, damn, was I ever wrong.

As a few stated, the action is just so completely over the top, it's ridiculous and loses all credibility.  ON top of that, it was redundant and downright dull much of the time.

There were a few things and characters I liked here, but few and far between.  The LOOOOOONG scene(s) under the White House went on WAAAAAY too long, and again, were completely unbelievable.

And then, the finale, and it's all done?  Huh?  Did I fall asleep again and miss something?  I actually thought I did, and played it back, but realized, no, that's just how it ends.

Weak...very, very weak.