‘Carry-On’ Review: Airport Thriller Barely Achieves Lift Off

Each year there exists a great debate as to whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie (it is, obviously). No matter which side of the argument you fall into, we can all agree that Hollywood is desperate to recreate the magic and success of that great action flick, which sees Bruce Willis single-handedly save the day after a terrorist attack on Christmas Eve. But despite all of these attempts, there’s never been any movie that’s lived up to that classic. Including now. 

Director Jaume Collet-Serra, responsible for hits like Orphan and The Shallows as well as requisite Liam Neeson action flicks like Non-Stop and The Commuter, tries his hand this year with Carry-On, a Netflix movie that should put everyone involved on the naughty list. It’s the sort of movie you watch with your family, drunk on a few glasses of mulled wine, and maybe a few people fall asleep for part of it. That won’t matter, even if the cast, particularly Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman, try their best to infuse the film with a sense of momentum that barely lifts off. 

Egerton is a disaffected TSA agent named Ethan Kopek, who only works at LAX because his girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson) also works there and he likes to have lunch with her. She’s pregnant and she’s disappointed with Ethan’s life choices, which have included failing to get into the police academy despite his dream of joining the LAPD. He shows up to work on Christmas Day, a particularly busy travel period, and decides to make more of an effort. He asks his boss Phil (Dean Norris) to give him a shot at running one of the security scanners, something you apparently have to build your way up to. Phil agrees, which is good for Ethan but bad for a group of terrorists, who weren’t expecting Ethan to be the guy helming that particular security lane. 

You know how this is going to go: Ethan is given an earpiece—not at all suspicious—and Bateman’s mysterious antagonist threatens to kill Nora if Ethan doesn’t allow a specific piece of luggage through. There’s a lot of talking, perhaps too much talking, Ethan is forced to decide whether he should comply for the good of his family or try to stop the attack for the good of the general public. He, of course, attempts to raise the alarm, quickly resulting in a co-worker’s death. Again, not at all suspicious. Meanwhile, a police officer named Elena Cole (Danielle Deadwyler, who should not be here) notices that something may be amiss at LAX and begins to investigate from the outside. 

It feels like there should be more action in Carry-On, which is constrained by its setting. A fight in the airport’s baggage sorting facility, where there are apparently no security cameras, makes for a decent set piece, but Egerton spends a lot of the movie looking concerned and, frankly, extremely shifty. Somehow he encounters Bateman’s character multiple times in the airport, including while he’s puking in a bathroom stall, and no one seems very concerned that Ethan continually wanders away from the security lane he’s been so keen to manage. In fact, the entire thing undercuts any sense that LAX has decent security at all. At one point, a terrorist wanders into Terminal 7’s ticketing area and stabs a TSA agent without anyone stopping him. The climax, which is almost too ridiculous for its own good, attempts to ratchet up the action, but again feels overly constrained. Also: Do this many people actually fly on Christmas Day? 

There have been other airport-set terrorist movies, including the very good Die Hard 2, that successfully bring a sense of thrilling tension to the usually mundane location. Con Air, Air Force One, Red Eye and the recent Apple TV+ series Hijack have proven that airplanes can be exciting places to pit an everyday hero against someone bent on destruction. Carry-On doesn’t make that particular list (there’s another where this belongs, as Santa knows). It’s occasionally diverting, sure, but so is killing time while you wait for your flight to board.