Okay, when you watch a movie, do you want to make sure the laws of physics are adhered to in a manner befitting a documentary with Pulitzer levels of journalistic integrity? Or do you want the improbable and the downright incredible to burst out of the screen and into your brain via your visual cortex?

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, it’s summertime! I want incredibleness! I want the laws of probability to be stretched so far out of shape that they look like saltwater taffy being pulled by Yao Ming!

If I wanted reality, I would sit my happy buttocks at home and watch the news. I want explosions and wild escapes and shocking events unencumbered by such silly things as reality. 

However, above all, I want to be entertained!

To wit, this summer’s movies, already based on a wild set of highly unlikely premises (talking toys, dream thieves, a network of Soviet spies lying silently in wait for decades to bring the great capitalist pig-dogs of America to their knees!), do try to keep a cohesive grip on the worlds they create. Each asks you to accept one impossible premise, but from there manages only to stretch your suspension of disbelief, not to fling it off of your nearest cliff (which, granted, in Louisiana, isn’t that near). 

Salt is one of those movies that is based on an extremely thin likelihood and is only tenuously related to reality, but … BUT … it is possible. I’m not saying “plausible,” although it rhymes; I’m saying it’s possible. It in no way breaks the laws of the natural world.

Most critiques against this film come at the angle of the childhood brainwashing it refers to (this is mentioned early on; that’s not much of a spoiler) and from the way the human mind works. Seeing as the brain is still mostly unexplored territory these days, I don’t think there are any experts out there that would rule out the possibility 100%. See, it’s possible! Even if it’s only a 0.001% chance.

There are lots of things in the movie that are highly improbable, but we forgive this because (A) it’s a movie and not meant to be taken so seriously that political action need be taken and (B) Angelina Jolie is freaking hot.

I’m not talking girl-next-door hot or prom-queen hot. I’m not even talking movie-star hot. I’m saying I can imagine an epic poem being recited centuries from now talking about how her face launched a thousand ships. I mean, damn! Have you seen [insert any freakin’ Angelina Jolie movie title]?!?!

Coming up, we have some more films that will be stretching our levels of acceptance. And I say bring them on. 

In The Expendables, a band of misfit mercenaries taking on a huge drug cartel in South America? Hell, yeah!

Some random comic book superhero movie where NO ONE uses security tapes to figure out the hero’s identity? Sure! Why not?!

Vampires? No.

I love movies. I love experiencing movies as they are meant to be experienced. I don’t like being insulted by the movies I have agreed with the director to be entertained by.

I walk into a movie, say, Sorcerer’s Apprentice, for instance. I’m saying, “Okay, Jon Turteltaub. You’re telling me magic exists. Alright, I won’t nitpick about whether it’s aerodynamically possible for a steel gargoyle from the Chrysler Building to fly if it only flaps its wings 12 times per minute, if you make it fun for me.”

I think one impossible thing is okay. We don’t watch movies so that we can see the way things would turn out in real life. We seek escape from that reality.

It’s okay for that reality to sit in on a movie, but we can’t ask it to permeate the movie at the expense of entertainment or meaning. There are genres of film in which that is appropriate, but there are some where “the way it really woulda happened” just ain’t welcome. 

I don’t think that’s asking too much on his part. I know some folks would disagree, but if you’re going to believe in corn, you have to believe in popcorn, too.