Here are a few of the movies that Roger Ebert has given "only" 3 or 3 1/2 stars to over the years:
The Godfather Part II
The Lion King
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Silence of the Lambs
There Will Be Blood
This past weekend, he gave Salt four stars.
Now, as someone both with common sense and a habit of assigning letter grades to films on this blog, I understand how these sort of rating systems work. Roger Ebert obviously doesn't think that Salt is a better movie than The Godfather Part II. But still, because he's Roger Ebert, a four-star review carries serious weight. In fact, had it not been for those four stars I probably would have waited for the DVD instead of going to see it last Sunday.
Even with his review (which I actually didn't read before going to the movie, because Ebert has this really awful tendency of unintentionally giving important stuff away. It's especially bad when it comes to films he doesn't like. Some of his horror movie reviews might as well be point-by-point plot summaries) I wasn't expecting much. What I got was...honestly, I'm still working that out.
I mean, I liked the movie. I didn't love it, but it's a sold C+ action film. In the very least, it has a great cast, with Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor. But the script was just maddeningly all over the place. A stupid summer action movie can get away with one, maybe two major plot holes without people noticing. Salt probably has a dozen of them. It's like, you know in movies about making movies, they often have stereotypes for characters, like the actor character asking, "But what's my motivation?" or for the writer character explaining to the director why something is important and shouldn't be changed?
None of that happened during the production of Salt. It's just one brainless twist after another. Even when a brainless twist isn't called for! Given a choice between the path of least resistance or taking just two lousy minutes to figure out even a halfway plausible explanation for something, the movie gleefully takes the path of least resistance every single time. And amazingly, it works.
But here's my list of everything that was driving me crazy while watching it, occasionally causing me to fidget in my seat and glance around to see if anyone else in the theater was as incredulous as I was at what the film was trying to get away with.
Spoilers follow...
-- Salt was turned into a Russian sleeper agent when she was a kid living in Russia. But when, exactly? While her parents were alive? I have to think they'd notice that their daughter's head was being filled with anti-American propaganda and secret plans to destroy the country. Right after they were killed in the car accident? How long between that, and when the guy from the American embassy showed up to take her home? A day? Maybe two? I know kids are impressionable, especially after a traumatic incident, but I'm pretty sure they're not that impressionable.
-- Isn't part of having a front company in downtown D.C. that if someone shows up and claims to know that it's really a CIA office, you don't confirm that he's right by bringing him to a high-tech interrogation room to be questined by CIA agents?
-- Salt later say she recognized Orlov as soon as she saw him in the interrogation room, and he obviously knew her. Wouldn't it have maybe made a lot more sense for him to not intentionally expose her as a Russian agent? How was his plan in any way helped by turning Salt into a fugitive? Winter said he talked him into it, but that conversation must have gone something like, "Hey, you know this great big Day X operation we've been working on for decades? Let's maybe screw up the whole thing by blowing Salt's cover! Why? I dunno. Just because. How about it?"
-- Why did Salt have so long to poke around her apartment before the feds showed up. And it was really convenient how they all ran inside the building without leaving anyone guarding the exit.
-- When Winter sees Salt making her escape from the building, why the hell did he shout, "Hey, everyone! It's Salt!" and give chase? He wanted her to get away.
-- I'm used to D.C. getting no respect when it comes to geography. So I'm not really all that bothered by Salt leaving her apartment on U Street, running a couple of blocks and ending up at the Archives-Memorial Station, which is two miles away. But it would have been nice to at least show her taking the train instead of just going down the Archives-Memorial escalator, sprinting through a really lovely underground promenade (Crystal City, maybe? It happened too fast for me to tell), and emerging at L'Enfant Plaza. I know Metro's really strict when it comes to filming on trains, but Jesus, just go shoot on the Vancouver subway for a week like every other movie production.
-- On the night before a state funeral, in which the U.S. president, the Russian president, and God knows how many dignitaries and VIPs will be attending, can you really get a hotel room overlooking the church? The Secret Service wouldn't have a problem with that?
-- The ease with which Salt takes out the Secret Service agents and proceeds to blow up the floor of the church with more precision than the entire Army Corp of Engineers is probably capable of, was dumb. Even for this movie.
-- An assassin has just killed the Russian president. (Or so everyone thinks, anyway.) They're really just going to put in in the back of an NYPD squad car and send it on its way?
-- How does she know how to find Orlov and his men? 30 years ago in Russia, Orlov told her exactly where his camp in New York would be?
-- We know Salt's a good fighter and a junior MacGyver who can make a rocket launcher out of a fire extinguisher. But I'm not sure how that translates into her being able to leap down an elevator shaft one floor at a time. There are only a handful of non-superpowered fictional characters I'd buy this sort of stunt from. James Bond. Jason Bourne. Batman. Not Evelyn Salt.
-- I saw the twist of Winter being another Russian sleeper coming a mile away. I'm guessing everyone did. To the film's credit, at least when he asked for a gun while in the bunker, the Secret Service agent didn't just stupidly hand him one. Other than not getting out of the way when Decker shot him, that guy was probably the smartest character in the film.
-- Man, that nuclear countdown clock was slow. How long was it holding at 99% loaded? (Also, I can't help but think that a lot of Republicans who were watching this film suddenly started rooting for the Russians when they found out Winter's plot involved nuking Muslim countries. There are a few moments where you wonder if Salt is good or evil, but this scene must have really confused them.)
-- The spider venom revelation, I didn't see coming, but this one actually elicited groans from the audience.
-- For a guy who was looking at being arrested and locked up forever the second the president woke up and told everyone what happened, Winter was oddly fine just hanging out in the White House, getting his really minor injuries tended to. I would have maybe made a beeline for the airport, but I guess Russian Spy School never covered that part.
-- And the movie ends with Salt running through the woods, determined to take out the other sleeper agents, perfectly setting up a potential sequel. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want them to make it. They'll have to work really hard to top the sheer absurdity of this one.
The Godfather Part II
The Lion King
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Silence of the Lambs
There Will Be Blood
This past weekend, he gave Salt four stars.
Now, as someone both with common sense and a habit of assigning letter grades to films on this blog, I understand how these sort of rating systems work. Roger Ebert obviously doesn't think that Salt is a better movie than The Godfather Part II. But still, because he's Roger Ebert, a four-star review carries serious weight. In fact, had it not been for those four stars I probably would have waited for the DVD instead of going to see it last Sunday.
Even with his review (which I actually didn't read before going to the movie, because Ebert has this really awful tendency of unintentionally giving important stuff away. It's especially bad when it comes to films he doesn't like. Some of his horror movie reviews might as well be point-by-point plot summaries) I wasn't expecting much. What I got was...honestly, I'm still working that out.
I mean, I liked the movie. I didn't love it, but it's a sold C+ action film. In the very least, it has a great cast, with Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor. But the script was just maddeningly all over the place. A stupid summer action movie can get away with one, maybe two major plot holes without people noticing. Salt probably has a dozen of them. It's like, you know in movies about making movies, they often have stereotypes for characters, like the actor character asking, "But what's my motivation?" or for the writer character explaining to the director why something is important and shouldn't be changed?
None of that happened during the production of Salt. It's just one brainless twist after another. Even when a brainless twist isn't called for! Given a choice between the path of least resistance or taking just two lousy minutes to figure out even a halfway plausible explanation for something, the movie gleefully takes the path of least resistance every single time. And amazingly, it works.
But here's my list of everything that was driving me crazy while watching it, occasionally causing me to fidget in my seat and glance around to see if anyone else in the theater was as incredulous as I was at what the film was trying to get away with.
Spoilers follow...
-- Salt was turned into a Russian sleeper agent when she was a kid living in Russia. But when, exactly? While her parents were alive? I have to think they'd notice that their daughter's head was being filled with anti-American propaganda and secret plans to destroy the country. Right after they were killed in the car accident? How long between that, and when the guy from the American embassy showed up to take her home? A day? Maybe two? I know kids are impressionable, especially after a traumatic incident, but I'm pretty sure they're not that impressionable.
-- Isn't part of having a front company in downtown D.C. that if someone shows up and claims to know that it's really a CIA office, you don't confirm that he's right by bringing him to a high-tech interrogation room to be questined by CIA agents?
-- Salt later say she recognized Orlov as soon as she saw him in the interrogation room, and he obviously knew her. Wouldn't it have maybe made a lot more sense for him to not intentionally expose her as a Russian agent? How was his plan in any way helped by turning Salt into a fugitive? Winter said he talked him into it, but that conversation must have gone something like, "Hey, you know this great big Day X operation we've been working on for decades? Let's maybe screw up the whole thing by blowing Salt's cover! Why? I dunno. Just because. How about it?"
-- Why did Salt have so long to poke around her apartment before the feds showed up. And it was really convenient how they all ran inside the building without leaving anyone guarding the exit.
-- When Winter sees Salt making her escape from the building, why the hell did he shout, "Hey, everyone! It's Salt!" and give chase? He wanted her to get away.
-- I'm used to D.C. getting no respect when it comes to geography. So I'm not really all that bothered by Salt leaving her apartment on U Street, running a couple of blocks and ending up at the Archives-Memorial Station, which is two miles away. But it would have been nice to at least show her taking the train instead of just going down the Archives-Memorial escalator, sprinting through a really lovely underground promenade (Crystal City, maybe? It happened too fast for me to tell), and emerging at L'Enfant Plaza. I know Metro's really strict when it comes to filming on trains, but Jesus, just go shoot on the Vancouver subway for a week like every other movie production.
-- On the night before a state funeral, in which the U.S. president, the Russian president, and God knows how many dignitaries and VIPs will be attending, can you really get a hotel room overlooking the church? The Secret Service wouldn't have a problem with that?
-- The ease with which Salt takes out the Secret Service agents and proceeds to blow up the floor of the church with more precision than the entire Army Corp of Engineers is probably capable of, was dumb. Even for this movie.
-- An assassin has just killed the Russian president. (Or so everyone thinks, anyway.) They're really just going to put in in the back of an NYPD squad car and send it on its way?
-- How does she know how to find Orlov and his men? 30 years ago in Russia, Orlov told her exactly where his camp in New York would be?
-- We know Salt's a good fighter and a junior MacGyver who can make a rocket launcher out of a fire extinguisher. But I'm not sure how that translates into her being able to leap down an elevator shaft one floor at a time. There are only a handful of non-superpowered fictional characters I'd buy this sort of stunt from. James Bond. Jason Bourne. Batman. Not Evelyn Salt.
-- I saw the twist of Winter being another Russian sleeper coming a mile away. I'm guessing everyone did. To the film's credit, at least when he asked for a gun while in the bunker, the Secret Service agent didn't just stupidly hand him one. Other than not getting out of the way when Decker shot him, that guy was probably the smartest character in the film.
-- Man, that nuclear countdown clock was slow. How long was it holding at 99% loaded? (Also, I can't help but think that a lot of Republicans who were watching this film suddenly started rooting for the Russians when they found out Winter's plot involved nuking Muslim countries. There are a few moments where you wonder if Salt is good or evil, but this scene must have really confused them.)
-- The spider venom revelation, I didn't see coming, but this one actually elicited groans from the audience.
-- For a guy who was looking at being arrested and locked up forever the second the president woke up and told everyone what happened, Winter was oddly fine just hanging out in the White House, getting his really minor injuries tended to. I would have maybe made a beeline for the airport, but I guess Russian Spy School never covered that part.
-- And the movie ends with Salt running through the woods, determined to take out the other sleeper agents, perfectly setting up a potential sequel. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want them to make it. They'll have to work really hard to top the sheer absurdity of this one.
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