‘All you have to do… is nothing...’
Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra makes two kinds of film. The same middling film over and over again with Liam Neeson (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night, The Commuter) and terrible films with Dwayne Johnson (Jungle Cruise, Black Adam). On the surface, Carry-On may seem like something as a departure seeing as it doesn’t feature either of the aforementioned action stars. Don’t be fooled. The clue is in the title. Put Carry-On in a list with those Neeson films and their non-descript titles and it would fit snugly next to Unknown and Non-Stop). This is just that same film again but it is now Taron Egerton instead of Neeson in the title role…
The premise is a good one. TSA agent Ethan (Egerton) is tasked by a voice on the end of a phone (Jason Bateman via a tiny earpiece) with making sure a particular suitcase makes it through security and onto a plane worryingly containing 250 passengers. The supporting cast doesn’t make much of an impression but it’s nice to see Dean Norris (Breaking Bad) and Josh Brener (Silicon Valley) graduating from beloved character actors on television to the big screen and they both provide some decent comic relief here.
The problem here is not the premise. The problem is that Collet-Serra and writer T.J. Fixman fail to stretch the compelling but thin concept out over 119 minutes. This would make an outstanding one-hour episode of television but stretched into nearly two hours it soon becomes repetitive and derivative of better films. It doesn’t help that the action sequences are fairly uninspired and the dialogue forgettable. Having said that, Egerton is always decent value in this kind of role and Bateman is genuinely excellent as the antagonist. His cold, detached demeanour is surprisingly menacing in places and the film always dips in the scenes in which he doesn’t feature.
As with much of Collet-Serra’s output, this is half a great film and half a distinctly average film. One day, he might deliver his masterpiece. Carry-On isn’t it.
