Summer Blockbusters: Jolie Adds Spice to "Salt"

As for this summer's big adventure films, our David Edelstein tells us about two of them:

The brontosaurus-budget action movies of midsummer are "Inception" and "Salt," and together they cost nearly a third of a billion dollars.

The pre-release hype for Christopher Nolan's "Inception" was particularly intense. He made "The Dark Knight," and fans of that movie had a lot invested in this one being great.

Now that the movie has been out a week, the talk has shifted to what on Earth is going on in it.

Pictures: "Salt" Around the World
Pictures: "Salt" in Los Angeles

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a man who can jump into people's dreams and extract their secrets. This time, though, he and a team that includes Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have to jump into a billionaire's head and plant an idea - which is supposedly more difficult than extracting one.

They have to trigger dreams, dreams within dreams, and dreams within dreams within dreams.

It takes a lot of sorting out.

In the end, what you get is a clunky formula hodgepodge, "Ocean's 11 Visits the Matrix," with some Freud, some Buddha, and some cool effects - though at these prices, not enough.

If it blows you away, great.

But I think Nolan is too literal-minded to cut loose, to make a dream movie that's genuinely out of this world.

"Salt," on the other hand, has zero pretentions. It's a long chase.

The title character - yes, her name is Salt - is a CIA operative who might (or might not) be a Russian sleeper agent, but a smarter one than any of the boneheads we just deported.

The movie is a blast, even though - and this might be a deal-breaker for some people - it makes no sense, at all!

Why does the guy at the start do the thing …? And then Salt do the thing …? And then …

Forget it.

What it lacks in coherence it makes up for with a centrifugal force that goes by the name of Angelina Jolie. If you don't know what Salt is doing, you know - you know - that Angelina knows. Her certainty is diabolical.

She's Bond, Bourne, Jack Bauer, even MacGyver. The movie takes its drive from her. It's "forward-ho" even when the plot is doing loop-de-loops. It's fluid even when the action is smash-and-bash.

I still don't know why her name is Salt, though.

But like the heroes of "Inception," Hollywood is good at planting ideas in your head. I'll figure it out at some point.

Edelstein Also Recommends:
"The Kids Are All Right"
"Despicable Me"

For more info:
The Projectionist (David Edelstein's Movie Blog)