Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One ★★★★☆

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One follows a great tradition in this series of an inconsistent naming scheme, with the next movie totally ditching having "Part 2" in its name. This movie, while not quite living up to its predecessor "Fallout," still delivers action that makes me excited that I get to see the final film in IMAX tomorrow. When I started watching this movie, I groaned when I realized that the antagonist was going to be an AI. But the movie doesn't fall into some of the worst tropes of Hollywood AI characters. The next movie could ruin everything, of course, but I'm still eager to find out the answers to my questions about what is really going on in this movie, and how this AI plot is going to play out. Ironically in a movie about the dangers of computers and the need for a human touch, I noticed a fair amount of CGI in this movie. But I forgive it, because it didn't totally take me out of the action. 

This movie brought humor back into the series in an interesting way. A lot of the humor comes from physical action instead of from quips by the characters. I enjoyed it, though it may have been a bit much. I guess I complained a little about the last movie having no breathing room, so watching a car chase scene that seemed to be solely included for its humor was an interesting choice, and not necessarily a bad one. But the scene where Ethan Hunt lands in a train car after parachuting off of a cliff and saves the day by accidentally knocking out one of the bad guys did make me groan internally even as I laughed externally. 

Overall, I enjoyed this movie, but it fell a bit short of the previous film. So 4 out of 5 stars.