Year of Release: 2024
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Danielle Deadwyler, Sofia Carson, Theo Rossi, Tonatiuh, Logan Marshall-Green, Dean Norris, Joe Williamson, Sinqua Walls, Curtiss Cook, Gil Perez-Abraham, Josh Brener, Benito Martinez, Edwin Kho, Reisha Reynolds, Adam Stephenson, Michael Scott
Genre: Action, Crime
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
Watch it on Netflix
Synopsis and Review
After tackling the not so successful comic book adaptation "Black Adam", Jaume Collet-Serra is back with a genre film more in line with the films that originally put him on the map, namely "Orphan", and the Liam Neeson starrer series which included "Unknown", "Non-Stop", "Run All Night", and "The Commuter". "Carry-On" focuses on the story of Ethan Kopek, a young TSA agent, who has had ambitions of becoming a police officer, but who has settled into his current profession. His partner, Nora, who also works at the airport but for an airline, advises him to try again for what he really wants to be doing, particularly has she's pregnant, and wants to see him pursuing his dreams. Ethan decides to ask instead for a promotion, and gets assigned a baggage-scanning lane. While there he receives an earbud, through which he gets placed in contact with a traveler, who is in reality a mercenary who knows everything about him, and threatens him with Nora's life unless he does exactly what he asks. Ethan is being monitored by one of the accomplices of the traveler, who has access to the cameras in the building. The traveler wants one of the people going through security, to have no glitches, and for the bag not to be flagged. Turns out the bag has one of the most dangerous gasses in existence, and the intention is to detonate it on a flight. While Ethan is dealing with this situation, an LAPD detective by the name of Elena Cole is investigating a double homicide that eventually ties with the situation that is taking place at the airport. On her way to the airport the agent going with her turns out to also be involved in this conspiracy. Ethan tries to sabotage the traveler's plans, commencing with the passenger carrying the bag with the gas. But the traveler is always one step ahead, and he and his associates will stop at nothing including harming Nora.
"Carry-On" is written by T.J. Fixman who has a career largely focused on writing video games. The film comes across as a modernized take on action B-films of the 1980s, very similar to what Cannon/Golan-Globus were releasing at the time. There are nods to the higher budget action films of the 80s directed by John McTiernan, most obviously of course being the "Die Hard" series, however "Carry On" doesn't quite reach the heights of intelligence (and humor) of that particular classic. The characters are fairly quickly established, with the central hero Ethan getting just enough dimension to be more than a typical cliché, while the supporting characters have a far more limited bandwidth in terms of what they get to play and be. The central villainous character is similarly played off more like a hyper-focused professional, as opposed to a rather brutal criminal, something that is also closer in tone with some of the villainous characters that action series such as Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass's Jason Bourne films have illustrated for the past 20 years. Overall it's a film that manages to display a fairly suspenseful tone, without ever being truly unexpected in its direction or its outcome. The cast is fairly competent, particularly the trifecta of Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, and Danielle Deadwyler, whereas Sofia Carson is terribly miscast (she appears to be on a completely different world than everyone else on this film). The production team is competent, with highlights going to Lorne Balfe's score, and Elliot Greenberg, Krisztian Majdik, and Fred Raskin's editing, the latter team making the film have a momentum that would otherwise steal the whole aspect of a narrative that is happening in real-time. It's a watchable, but also rather forgettable endeavor.
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