Monday Movie Review: SALT

Brian's Take: Have you ever watched the olympics?  It seems like every year there is a gymnast who is favored to win it all.  They line up on that horse vaulting runway thing and lift up their arm.  Everyone knows they have it in the bag.  They take off, bounce on that springy pad, plant their hands on the horse, fly through the air with flips and spins, and land gracefully on the mat.  Except that they don't.  They mess up their footing.  They stumble forward and fall on their face.  The entire audience is stunned.  Now imagine if they kept on stumbling.  They roll and thrash around until they knock into the judges stand.  One of the judges has a mug of hot coffee that spills in their lap.  They leap up screaming profanities and accidentally elbow another judge in the face.  That judge, nose broken, proceeds to bleed all over the floor.  Another gymnast, this one on their way to the rings, happens to walk by.  They slip in the steadily accumulating pool of blood and land hard on the floor, breaking their wrist in the process.  A nearby camera man, in an attempt to get it all on film runs towards the fallen athlete.  At that moment, the head of the international olympics committee enters the fray and receives a camera to the groin.  The entire debacle is displayed for millions to see.  SALT is the theatrical equivalent of the above scenario.  Good acting talent, decent, if derivative plot about an international spy organization.  Plenty of action.  And yet, somehow, the whole thing is a train wreck.  Watch at your own risk.

Marilee's take: I will not add to the review itself. Rather I will expand on the two hours prior to the movie watching which may or may not have altered our feelings toward the film. Thanks to many professional movie reviews we decided that the last film of the year needed to be a good one. SALT was suppose to be "the movie" so we checked the local redbox on our way out Walmart. Notta. So we thought heck we will check McDonalds on the way home it is like one block from the house. And yet nothing. Well how about Hy-vee it is in the same parking lot, and yet I leave redbox number 3 empty handed. Once we return home and upload all the groceries we hopped on the internet and checked just one more time if our movie happened to come in to a machine close by in the last ten minutes. And sure enough McDonalds saves the day. We reserve and I head out on my minute and a half trip. I return in less then predicted time because....... They have no record of my online reservation. Really I tried a handful of cards there in case Brian happened to reserve it under the wrong card. (why not call you ask, that would require a phone and mine is at home safe charging) The best part is the couple who snuck in front of me while I packed away my keys GOT our movie. BLAH!! A call was made, a refund sent, and a new reservation arranged. I head out this time to Hy-vee. I wait in line only to find yet again no reservation. I am not upset, I simply throw the debit card at Brian upon return. Another call was made, another refund sent, and three coupon codes emailed. We give up feed children and put them to bed. But now we are sitting on the couch at 10 o'clock on New Year's eve with nothing to watch. So we stupidly hop on the computer to find in fact McDonalds had another copy. This time we head out with cell phone in hand (brian goes I am DONE for the night!) and returns with our movie. We had big hopes for this film after a long night of phone calls and button pushing. And alas it STUNK!