Carry-On is a highly accomplished, if deeply silly, thrill ride

The Anglophiles reading this will know that the Carry On series represents some of the very best of British humor — or, alternatively, the very worst. The jokes were broad and basic, the stereotypes egregious and the production values negligible. Nonetheless, for the two decades that the series continued to attract viewers, they were enormously popular films because they did not attempt anything surprising or unpretentious. Instead, millions of viewers enjoyed them because they were just as the title promised — a carry on — with no hidden depths, or shallows.  

The new Taron Egerton-Jason Bateman thriller on Netflix may share a title with the British series, and Egerton’s occasional high-stress pouts in moments of drama may remind the more irreverent viewer of the earlier films’ star Kenneth Williams, but that’s as far as the obvious similarities go. (Writing this review, I had to read one film critic’s labored comparisons with the other actors, and dear God that was an ordeal.) Instead, what we have here is a very serviceable, rather entertaining picture with two charismatic stars that once would have gone to cinemas and probably made quite a lot of money, but now has been sent straight to the streaming service without hesitation.    

Nobody would ever mistake it for Oscar-winning art. Director Jaume Collet-Serra, whose other films include the very silly Jungle Cruise and the better-than-it-should-be Liam Neeson vehicle Unknown, competently marshals all the ingredients of an airborne thriller. Egerton’s dodgily accented transit clerk Ethan Copek has a pregnant girlfriend, a case of under-achieving blues and a dead-end job. Step forward Bateman’s cheerily diabolical villain (only known as the Traveler) who, via some nonsense with an earpiece, levels with him. If Ethan doesn’t allow a mysterious case, loaded to the gills with Novichok, through airport security, then people close to him will start to die, beginning with his girlfriend. What is a man to do?  

The appeal with a film like this is not in its plot twists, but in watching a piece of generic Christmas-themed schlock done very well. Most of the appeal comes from Bateman, who proves himself to be quite the whizz at deadpan villainy; not only does he get most of the best lines, but there are genuine laughs to be had from the way in which he breaks off from committing some act of terrorism to give Ethan a pep talk about the (many) ways in which he is failing. It’s almost disappointing when the script means that he has to embrace more straightforward villainy, and the film’s relatively low budget means that a final confrontation between the two lacks a certain visual panache.  

No matter, though. This is one of those thoroughly entertaining pictures where it’s obvious that the cast (including Dean Norris from Breaking Bad as Egerton’s hard-ass superior) are having a good time, and its star does as much running as Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible films. I may have missed the high-camp of Charles Hawtrey, Sid James and the rest from the British Carry On films, but for those of us who aren’t obsessed by such throwbacks, this is a highly accomplished, if deeply silly, thrill ride that will restore faith in Netflix’s ability to produce original pictures that can genuinely entertain.