Carry On

The best Christmas set action flick since "Die Hard ", CARRY ON is a suspenseful thriller that demands you check logic at the gate and buckle up for thrills.

Taron Egerton (Rocketman, Kingsman: The Secret Service) is perfectly cast as Ethan Kopek, a TSA agent who shows up for work everyday without a lot of thought for his career choice.

As the film opens, his girlfriend Nora is enjoying her recent promotion to head of LAX operations for Northwind Airlines. Nora (Sofia Carson) also has just shared by the Christmas tree that she's expecting, causing Ethan to ponder his career trajectory.

He's picked the wrong Christmas Eve to become a model employee.

A mysterious traveler (an excellent Jason Bateman) appears just as Ethan takes over one of the main carry on screening machines at LAX'S Terminal 7. Texts on his phone prompt him to place a recently found earpiece in his ear.

So begins a cat & mouse game that keeps the nearly two hour running time flying by, edging you closer and closer to the edge of your seat.

The Traveler wants Ethan to do nothing when a carry on bag comes through his scanner. That's all he has to do, nothing.

My first thought was how easy it would be to walk away, but the tight screenplay by T.J. Fixman quickly showed me why I was wrong. The traveler has eyes everywhere. The day has been well planned and a lethal response seems to be a step away for anyone that Ethan attempts to bring into the fold.

The film only occasionally leaves LAX to follow Detective Elena Cole, whose investigation of several brutal murders the night before put her on the trail of the traveler. Danielle Deadwyler (Till, The Harder They Fall) is excellent as the only one concerned about where the clues lead on the night before a holiday. She has one action scene on the LA Freeway that absolutely blows the film up into WOW territory.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows, Jungle Cruise) is no stranger to staging fantastic action sequences, but he takes things to another level here. It's the first hand-to-hand fight I've ever seen staged in this tight of space as a freeway full of travelers at 70 MPH feel the impact of the battle. The camera never leaves the inside of the car during the fight. Clever as hell.

Collet-Serra also delivers plenty of airport set thrills when Ethan finally leaves that swiveling chair at the luggage screener for some fast paced action.

I don't think it's a mistake that Egerton's character shares a first name with Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt. Egerton's TSA man of action runs as fast and as much as Cruise in any Mission Impossible film.

Bateman (The Outsider, Air) has emerged as an enjoyable actor to watch in any role and he relishes his time here as The Traveler. Most of the film is verbal sparring between the two men, at first on an earpiece and then in person.

I laughed out loud at one point during one of many scenes that stretch logic and credibility to the breaking point and arguably beyond. Bateman spends over a minute detailing exactly what his plan is in a speech that could be Auric Goldfinger or Scaramanga spinning their tales of world domination to OO7 just before their plans to kill the secret agent go awry.

The first film of Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment new deal with Netflix, the film makes its $45 million budget look like three times that amount and the LAX sets built at the old airport in New Orleans are excellent. The film looks as good on the ground as it does in the air.

Stir up some hot cocoa, grab some Christmas cookies and settle in with CARRY ON. It's the most fun I've had battling bad guys in an airport on Christmas Eve since Bruce Willis lit that fire trail up to the 747 in "Die Hard 2" in 1990.

CARRY ON gets a B+.