With CARRY-ON, director Jaume Collet-Serra (BLACK ADAM) delivers a po-faced, humourless, holiday-themed action thriller that is competent but never thrilling. Taron Egerton (KINGSMAN) plays an aimless loser TSA agent co-opted by a mercenary (Jason Bateman - Arrested Development) who wants to smuggle a nerve agent onto a plane on Christmas Eve. Cue confused looks from co-workers and pregnant girlfriend/colleague as our hero starts muttering to himself and acting weird. Luckily a sparky black policewoman (Danielle Deadwyler - TILL) - following our recent trend from WICKED LITTLE LETTERS and VENGEANCE MOST FOWL - realises something is up. No prizes for guessing how it resolves.
I give it two stars from some genuinely good banter between Bateman and Egerton in the first act, with Bateman needling Egerton's TSA agent for his lack of ambition. But where's the warmth? This film probably suffers from the fact that I recently rewatched the original DIE HARD. In that film we had jokes, we had catchphrases, we had actual relationship peril between our working class guy and his business executive wife. We had a properly iconic villain. This film lives in DIE HARD's shadow with its basic plot beats and concept, but feels so much more drab.
CARRY-ON is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 119 minutes. It was released on Netflix earlier this month.
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