SALT

Checking your brain at the door may be your best bet if you intend to properly enjoy this frenetic, outrageous action-thriller that’s high on ass-kicking but comparatively thin on plot and logic.

Angelina Jolie stars as Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative who may or may not also be a Russian spy working for an intricate sleeper ring in the United States. When a “walk-in” defector shows up at one the CIA’s offices and fingers Salt as a double agent, all hell breaks loose for our pouty-lipped heroine, who promptly goes on the lam to clear her name.

Or does she?

The film does a relatively decent job of keeping the audience guessing as to where Salt’s true allegiances lie as she flees a swarm of Feds, including her CIA partner (Liev Schreiber) and a Secret Service agent (Chiwetel Ejiofor) fiercely determined to bring her to justice. There are enough elaborate stunts and car chases and fancifully choreographed shootouts along the way to satisfy any hardcore action fan, but the proceedings still felt oddly... meh.

For starters, as the story unfolds it becomes obvious that it actually makes no sense if you think about it too long – a lot of critical info is sort of glossed over (most of which dealing with Salt’s childhood and how she wound up where she’s at when the film begins) and flashbacks do little to clarify any of it. There’s also an entire tangential subplot about being reunited with a girlhood “friend” that, as it unravels, adds nothing to anything except landing Salt in a key hallway at just the right moment. And, once the dust settles and everyone’s motivations are out in the open, it’s all a little anticlimactic.

For her part, Jolie turns in yet another slick tough-chick performance. Whether she’s leaping from one moving truck to another as they hurtle along a highway, or flying through a hallway full of opponents with guns blazing and fists flying, she looks great and, more importantly, is believable... if not as a CIA operative, then (at the very least) as a gal who knows her way around an action film. Unfortunately, the filmmakers dropped the ball when casting her love interest – August Diehl (Inglorious Basterds) co-stars as Salt’s arachnologist husband, but the two have zero chemistry and Diehl makes for a woefully dull and unconvincing romantic thorn in Salt’s side.

Most importantly, and perhaps most distressingly, the film [** and what follows may be considered a mild spoiler so please stop reading right now if you’re at all worried **] doesn’t really have an ending so much as it just ends. At around the 88-minute mark, the film seems to launch a whole new chapter, only to have the credits roll about three minutes later. The producers are clearly gambling on having a sequel greenlit, but pinning their hopes on stellar box-office results and reviews may have been premature. [** Okay, you can resume reading now. **]

Again, as a mindless, big-budget summer blockbuster, Salt has most of the necessary ingredients in place. The key to enjoying it is lowering your expectations a smidge and then strapping yourself in for a very bumpy ride.