a critical look at "Dead Reckoning, Part I"

I agreed with some of the criticisms but not with others:

Charles and I had some differences of opinion about the film. Interestingly, the critic brings up Charles's theory that the AI is more like a cover for an actual person. But he also supports my idea that the cruciform key, seemingly central to the plot, is actually a MacGuffin. The critic and I agree that one character's death was bad (although he and I give different reasons for thinking that); the critic and I disagree, however, about Esai Morales as the human face of the inimical AI. I thought Morales was excellent in the role, probably because I viewed the film as saturated with religious meaning, with Morales's Gabriel coming off as a sort of high priest; the critic above thought Morales was miscast and not very impactful. And while the critic insisted that he liked this newest Mission: Impossible movie, his criticisms showed that he had some pretty deep problems with the film. I did appreciate his point about unnecessary redundancies in the story, though—e.g., his description of the character Paris (Pom Klementieff) as "a henchman for a henchman." I hadn't thought of that.