Maybe it’s just that I was spoiled by Inception, by the notion that a summer action flick could be both thrilling and smart. But then again, that’s also been the attraction of the Bourne series: the notion that adrenaline-based cinema doesn’t have to come with the caveat that one has to check their brain at the door. Not that action films are universally smarter these days, but the mindless and the thoughtful are generally easy to separate: the A-Team? No frontal lobe required. A spy flick starring Angelina Jolie and directed by the (generally) thoughtful Phillip Noyce? There’s a reasonable expectation of smart thrills going in.

What Salt provides, however, is a complete failure of basic logic. Perhaps expecting sense in this kind of movie is a mistake to begin with. But when action sequences are predicated on otherwise intelligent people acting with a complete lack of common sense, it begins to feel a little insulting. Do the filmmakers think of us as magpies, so easily distracted by shiny objects — or, in this case, slow-motion explosions and fast-paced physics-defying chase sequences — that we’ll buy even the most outlandish plot holes?

The plot is recycled Cold War boilerplate, and one wonders if screenwriter Kurt Wimmer hasn’t had this sitting around in a drawer since 1985, just waiting for a timely rewrite. Instead of the standard issue Chinese/Muslim baddies that have dominated these movies of late, we’re back to our old commie nemeses here, in the form of sleeper agents trained from childhood and placed into American society in the 80s to infiltrate every area of government. (The producers must have jumped for joy when the recent Russian spy case hit the media and gave their movie some added relevance.)