* Director: Phillip Noyce
* Cast: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andre Braugher
* Running time: 100 min
* Age restriction: 13V
She is a multifaceted movie icon, but also a great actress. She has won both Oscar and Golden Globe acting awards, and powerful performances in films such as A Mighty Heart and Changeling have displayed her formidable acting skills.
She's versatile, but she's at her best in high-action, quasi-fiction blockbusters in which she can inject her vibrant star power. In Salt she pulls that signature trick again.
This movie was originally going to be made with Tom Cruise in the lead role, but there were money issues involved, and he quit the project. Jolie stepped eagerly into the role. She wanted to finally bury her old, comic-book Lara Croft image by moving on to a more substantial action movie.
Salt is a high-speed, tough espionage thriller in which Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative who closely resembles a female James Bond - but without his sly innuendo or ageing trademarks. Salt can handle weapons like a pro and she has a set of martial arts skills that make Modesty Blaise look like "Kung Fu Barbie".
Changing the sex of the lead role in Salt proved to be a smart move. Male espionage thrillers have become routine. As we have recently heard, even James Bond seems to have passed his final sell-by date and all future 007 movies are on hold.
Female spies still carry a certain mystique and Jolie works it with such swift, sexy energy that you can hardly hear the clichés clicking into place.
After a pulse-racing opening sequence, we watch Salt fall from grace. She is considered to be one of the CIA's brightest operatives but that all ends when a Russian defector, Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) accuses her of being a KGB agent in deep cover.
It's an explosive twist that pushes Salt into an almost impossible situation. She can't just sit around in the CIA offices trying to defend herself, so she runs. Pretty soon the CIA, the FBI and even the Russian KGB are chasing her across Washington.
To add to the chaos, the Russian president (Olek Krupa) is in the US attending the funeral of the US vice-president.
As Salt gathers information, it occurs to her that she was accused of being a KGB agent on the very day that the Russian president was in town, a coincidence that is just too neat. Salt starts unravelling the mystery, looking for a connection that will help her clear her name.
Which of the agents and friends can she trust? Somebody in her inner circle is manipulating her situation and she has to find out who it is. At the same time, she tries to find the Russian spymasters to see what they know.
Could it be a plot to assassinate the Russian president while on American soil? Such an action would ignite a ruinous conflict from which some very nasty people will become rich and powerful.
The film is directed by Phillip Noyce, an Australian who leapt to fame in the American industry with films such as Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger starring Harrison Ford. His action dramas and thrillers were hugely successful and in 1999 he made the thriller The Bone Collector with Jolie and Denzel Washington.
Noyce brings his terse cutting style and intense focus on detail into a sleek mix with the high-action set pieces, most of which revolve around Jolie, who is in superb form.
She did all her own stunts, and she slugged her way through a couple of breakneck fights that ooze pure testosterone.
There's a moment when she is hanging backwards over a hand-rail and lands a blow that is so well placed that you marvel at her skill, especially when it is obvious that most of these action sequences are real, not just CGI enhancement - and that's impressive.
The question is this: will audiences embrace Salt as a feminist icon in a populist action thriller? The American public is still jittery and nervous about their future, and the movie bosses want results that will finance their future plans.
Salt took a respectable $113-million, which sounds pretty good - until you measure it against top earners like Toy Story ($405-million) and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ($298-million). In comparison with other movies in the same genre, Salt is a decent but unremarkable earner, but that's not what studio bosses want to hear.
If Salt had come out at the same time as the first Bourne movie, nine years ago, it would have been a mega-hit.
But this movie is suffering from genre overdose. It comes too late in the cycle to seem fresh or innovative.
But don't let market analysis and trend predictions deflect you from seeing this film.
Jolie is in peak form; the film has pace, energy and mystery; and Noyce is a master of swift, exciting storytelling.
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