Action Angelina re-emerges in ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’

Above : Angelina Jolie stars in “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” which is set to open on Friday. (Photo/New Line Cinema)

Since I haven’t seen Angelina Jolie ’s picture recently on any of the supermarket tabloids, I’ve been wondering what she’s been up to.

Not that I actually buy those rags, you understand. But I can’t help but read them as I wait in line, masked and maintaining the proper social distance. It’s hard to resist the lurid headlines and doctored photos of Angie and Brad, Meghan and Harry and whomever else is deemed flavor of the week.

Jolie once was an A-list actress. She even won an Oscar , though in a supporting category.

Not that she hasn’t been busy. In the past few years she’s done movies aimed at children (the “Maleficent” movies, voicing Tigress in the Kung Fu Panda” films) and directed her own films (including 2014’s “Unbroken” and 2017’s “First They Killed My Father”).

Now, in “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” which is set to open in mainstream theaters on Friday, she re-emerges in her action-flick persona, similar to what she portrayed in the original “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001) and “Salt” (2010).

Jolie plays a fire warden/wilderness survival expert who ends up shepherding a young boy (played by Finn Little). Seems the boy is witness to a murder, and Jolie must help him escape two would-be assassins and the deadly forest fire they set. Ooooooh.

Directed and co-written by Taylor Sheridan (“Wind River”), and co-starring the likes of Jon Bernthal, Aiden Gillen and Nicholas Hoult, the movie is attracting a balance of positive and negative reviews:

Ann Hornaday , The Washington Post: “With the guaranteed brilliance of the good guys and pivotal blunders by the bad guys, amid lightning fields and licking flames and noisy fusillades, ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ finally implodes in a fireball of cheesy disaster-flick cliches.”

Alonso Duralde , TheWrap: “The stakes are high and the danger is always imminent in this straightforward thriller; it never bends the rules of the genre, but it certainly delivers on what it promises.”

OK, now you get to cast the deciding vote. But not until Friday.