Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation ★★★☆☆

Alright, here we have it. The first Mission: Impossible movie to have a female co-lead who is a full character, and a match for Ethan Hunt himself. She even saves Ethan from drowning, and it's a skill she has over him that was previously set up, so it's believable. Props to the movie for this. But overall, I was fairly bored watching this movie. The scenes involving Jeremy Renner and Alec Baldwin I found boring. Ethan Hunt comes off as a crazed conspiracy theorist, even though we all know he's right. It all comes to a head in the finale where he's proven right, which, I'll admit, I found enjoyable. But the stunts are just okay, like I feel like I've heard that Tom Cruise really had to hold his breath for a long time for this stunt, but when he was underwater, for some reason it didn't feel realistic. I know I've been harping on this realism thing too much for this series. Maybe it's not important. Maybe I'm getting fatigued by too much Mission: Impossible, with 5 movies in 6 days. So far, I think Mission: Impossible peaked with M:i:III. And my earlier prediction is so far holding out: the series is drifting away from the spy genre into action, complete with a shift in tone just ever so slightly towards too much comic relief, as seen by Benji's character, introduced in movie 3. They do try to do some of the betrayal stuff here, but I don't think they commit. We're supposed to wonder, like Ethan Hunt and his team do, whether his love interest will betray them all. But we're given too much information. The movie doesn't commit. The first Mission: Impossible movie committed hard to the will she/won't she be a femme fatale. And I don't count the other character who has a betrayal, because I just don't care about them. A betrayal twist has to mean something personally to the characters, and to the audience too. Maybe the problem is that once you put a twist into your movie, then when the sequel doesn't have one, people are disappointed, but when you put one in, people are looking for it, so it doesn't feel that good. Anyway, I want to be entertained. Surely these last three movies will do that for me. I said earlier that I had only seen the first 4 movies, but I actually saw this one too, I just didn't remember it at all. 3 out of 5 stars. It's fine.