Uploaded March 2011 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
So absurdly preposterous that it has been compared to the James Bond franchise, the 2010 thriller Salt finally gave actress Angelina Jolie her opportunity to launch what many hoped would be a female spy franchise. The Phillip Noyce film deals with an old cold war scenario in which Russian spies have infiltrated the American intelligence community and plot to destabilize the world by assassinating the Russian president while in the United States and, later on, gaining access to the nuclear codes necessary to launch a strike against Muslim cities to spawn a huge backlash against the country. The film initially toys with audiences by obscuring the counteragents, sending CIA agent Evelyn Salt (Jolie) into a series of chases that make you guess about her allegiances. The scenarios in which the presidents of America and Russia find themselves during Salt are hopelessly illogical, and without stunning pacing and photography in the chase sequences, the film was bait for decidedly mixed reviews. The production turned out to be something of a publicity stunt by Jolie, who not only replaced Tom Cruise in the lead role well into development of the film, but injured herself on set while performing stunts. One of the limited aspects of the movie praised widely by critics was James Newton Howard's score. The veteran composer was a more logical choice for Salt than Noyce's previous repeat collaborators, James Horner and Craig Armstrong, and Howard responded with a score that competently meets all the studio and audience expectations of a Hollywood techno-spy thriller. Unfortunately, that also means that the score treads uncomfortably close to the territory of Hans Zimmer's Remote Control clone factory and, as an alternative generally in the lead of that sound, the music of John Powell. In many ways, Salt is Howard's rendition of a typical Powell score of this kind, emulating the Jason Bourne franchise's music in its most frenetic parts. Howard's choice of ensemble is as predictable as it could be, utilizing an orchestra peppered in its mix with synthetic elements that occasionally dominate the soundscape. Also to be expected are a few cliched references to a Russian tone, either in progressions or in the employment of solo and ensemble vocals and a cimbalom in a few specific sequences. A slight rock-influenced ambience prevails as the title character is unleashed to her destiny at the conclusion of the film, one of the many direct references to the Mission: Impossible franchise that were precisely the reason Cruise left the production to begin with.
There has been significant discontent with the album release of Salt, limited to download-only availability and reportedly leaving out the film version of the choral mix in several cues. The latter problem is particularly irksome for Howard collectors after The Last Airbender; labels apparently now seem content to respond to challenging economic times by omitting or using sampled variations of choral accompaniment on albums in order to save money in reuse fees. No matter your views on this bootleg-inducing issue, Salt is a functional but not spectacular score with a few notable highlights.
(filmtracks.com/titles/salt.html)
So absurdly preposterous that it has been compared to the James Bond franchise, the 2010 thriller Salt finally gave actress Angelina Jolie her opportunity to launch what many hoped would be a female spy franchise. The Phillip Noyce film deals with an old cold war scenario in which Russian spies have infiltrated the American intelligence community and plot to destabilize the world by assassinating the Russian president while in the United States and, later on, gaining access to the nuclear codes necessary to launch a strike against Muslim cities to spawn a huge backlash against the country. The film initially toys with audiences by obscuring the counteragents, sending CIA agent Evelyn Salt (Jolie) into a series of chases that make you guess about her allegiances. The scenarios in which the presidents of America and Russia find themselves during Salt are hopelessly illogical, and without stunning pacing and photography in the chase sequences, the film was bait for decidedly mixed reviews. The production turned out to be something of a publicity stunt by Jolie, who not only replaced Tom Cruise in the lead role well into development of the film, but injured herself on set while performing stunts. One of the limited aspects of the movie praised widely by critics was James Newton Howard's score. The veteran composer was a more logical choice for Salt than Noyce's previous repeat collaborators, James Horner and Craig Armstrong, and Howard responded with a score that competently meets all the studio and audience expectations of a Hollywood techno-spy thriller. Unfortunately, that also means that the score treads uncomfortably close to the territory of Hans Zimmer's Remote Control clone factory and, as an alternative generally in the lead of that sound, the music of John Powell. In many ways, Salt is Howard's rendition of a typical Powell score of this kind, emulating the Jason Bourne franchise's music in its most frenetic parts. Howard's choice of ensemble is as predictable as it could be, utilizing an orchestra peppered in its mix with synthetic elements that occasionally dominate the soundscape. Also to be expected are a few cliched references to a Russian tone, either in progressions or in the employment of solo and ensemble vocals and a cimbalom in a few specific sequences. A slight rock-influenced ambience prevails as the title character is unleashed to her destiny at the conclusion of the film, one of the many direct references to the Mission: Impossible franchise that were precisely the reason Cruise left the production to begin with.
There has been significant discontent with the album release of Salt, limited to download-only availability and reportedly leaving out the film version of the choral mix in several cues. The latter problem is particularly irksome for Howard collectors after The Last Airbender; labels apparently now seem content to respond to challenging economic times by omitting or using sampled variations of choral accompaniment on albums in order to save money in reuse fees. No matter your views on this bootleg-inducing issue, Salt is a functional but not spectacular score with a few notable highlights.
(filmtracks.com/titles/salt.html)
