I saw Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.... PART ONE!!! in theaters today. Since it has already been out for like a month we were able to get the theater pretty much to ourselves. I used to be pretty hot and cold on Mission Impossible films and missed out on the middle ones and wasn't too hot on Tom Cruise much either. But after hearing about how good Fallout was, I went back and saw all of them from three onward and they were pretty decent overall and just got better and better I suppose.
These movies are still kinda feeling like Tom Cruise movies as opposed to a franchise type of film but they're so well made and entertaining and engrossing and Dead Reckoning I guess just improved on that formula that's worked out so well for them. Even though I'm basically seeing a star vehicle, it's a film I'm still thoroughly entertained by and it delivered on the action and manageable humor and tech and drama and character bits and our favorite dwarf being fawned over and tenderly caring for all manners of strong sexy spy babes and the like.
The real neat concept is as a spy thriller, it's use of an artificial intelligence as the primary plot point is something that could so easily be cringe or poorly done as well as something I've seen countless times before... but it's done far better here. There's no cringey hacking scenes or poorly set up or otherwise formulaic artificial nemesis or overreaching scifi nonsense. The artificial intelligence plot is well done and neat and really enhances the story but the core of the film using that for making a simply great and well told and crafted spy thriller movie.
Lots of spy thrillers dealing with artificial intelligence and hacking... Eagle Eye, Fast and the Furious 7, Black Hat, Live Free and Die Hard etc but this one did it pretty well. Keep in mind its not an in depth exploration of hacking or artificial intelligence like some Isaac Asimov novel or Mr. Robot, but its use as a focal plot point was well done.
So yeah, overall it was a good solid spy thriller. Certainly better than the latest and last Daniel Craig offering for the Bond franchise.