On Dec. 13, Netflix premiered Carry-On, a holiday action thriller film. The movie has quickly launched into popularity, becoming Netflix’s most-watched movie of the year with 97 million views within the first 10 days. With its popularity, Carry-On has the potential to be titled an action classic.
The film stars actor Taron Egerton as the main character, Ethan Kopek, a TSA agent stuck in a job he hates with a girlfriend, Nora (Sophia Carson), who unoriginally also happens to work in the airport. Driven by the newfound pregnancy of his girlfriend, Ethan fights to prove he deserves a promotion by working on the scanning machines during the busiest time of the year: Christmas Eve. However, the happy domestic start to the film quickly takes a turn with the appearance of a strange criminal simply known as the Traveler (Jason Bateman). Using Nora’s life as a threat, the Traveler blackmails Ethan into letting a dangerous package slip through security. Ethan must fight to outsmart the Traveler to ensure the safety of everyone in the airport, all while preventing his girlfriend and unborn child from getting killed.
While the film is loaded with tension and suspense typical of a thriller/action, it combines the perfect amount of comedy in its scenes. For example, when Ethan is threatening the Traveler over the phone and an elderly man thinks that Ethan is talking to him. Or when Ethan tests out whether the Traveler can see him through the camera and mistakenly flips off his boss. The addition of humor to the action-packed scenes prevents the film from being overridden with doom and gloom like many thrillers before have.
However, while this movie was a fun watch, it wasn’t anything more than that. It’s incredibly cheesy and cliche with illogical plot points and nothing that really stands out to me. It kept me focused and entertained but I highly doubt I’ll ever feel the need to rewatch it. At the risk of spoiling: the ending wasn’t particularly good either, positioning itself as a feel-good stereotypical happy ending but leaving the film with many things left to be questioned. Above all, it’s mediocre; there’s nothing wrong with the movie but there’s nothing great about it either.
Carry-On is not Oscar-worthy, but it’s still a charmingly simple and fun movie that will definitely provide entertainment. Although it’s not in the leagues of classic action films like Die Hard (in my opinion at least, it’s almost a cheap knockoff), I recommend watching if you’re bored and aren’t looking for anything complex that requires you to think too hard.