Del reviews ‘Carry-On’
Image by Netflix
“Carry-On” Starring Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Sofia Carson. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Rated PG-13. 1 hour, 59 minutes long.
Del’s take
“Carry-On,” the new thriller from Netflix, is “Die Hard” without the charismatic lead and relatable love interest. But its antagonist, while no Hans Gruber, does provide a satisfying level of menace and the Al Powell role is greatly and satisfyingly expanded.
“Carry-on” takes place at an airport, which I suppose makes it “Die Hard 2.” Taron Egerton plays the role of Ethan Kopek, the self-doubting and somewhat listless boyfriend of Nora Parisi (Sofia Carson), both of whom work at LAX. Kopek is languishing at his TSA job of running a metal detector over perpetually angry Karens flying from Los Angeles to wherever Karens go to roost. What he really wants to do is be a cop. But he applied and was rejected, so now he’s marking time and not really going anywhere in life.
After a pep talk from Nora, Kopek presses his boss, Phil Sarkowski (the always excellent Dean Norris of “Breaking Bad” fame) for a turn at the scanning machine, a step up from his lowly metal detecting duties. After some pushback Sarkowski obliges, and it’s here where events take a turn for the malevolent. Kopek is handed an ear piece over which he receives instructions to let a certain bag pass through the detector or people will die, including Nora.
Thus begins the meat of “Carry-On,” with Kopek racing against time, his fellow TSA agents, the Los Angeles PD and the mysterious voice over the ear piece (the unnamed Jason Bateman in a rare, dark role) to thwart a catastrophe.
“Carry-On” suffers from a couple of problems, most notably pacing, with fully the first half of the movie devoted to character development and backstory. At times the pacing was so glacial I was tempted to switch to “Squid Games 2.” But over a period of two days I managed to muck my way through all the nonsense about meeting Dad’s expectations and not letting one failure get you down, and finally the action commenced.
Once there the movie moved along briskly, admittedly with a few hitches in logic. I felt I was being asked to suspend my disbelief way too often, more frequently than in “Die Hard.”
The other problem was casting. Taron Egerton is a good enough actor and I loved him in the “Kingsman” movies, but here he seems weak and indecisive, not at all like Bruce Willis’ flawed but heroic John McClain. Sofia Carson was way too exotic for her role as Kopek’s pregnant girlfriend.
What Egerton and Carson lack as leads, however, Jason Bateman and Danielle Deadwyler more than make up for in their roles as antagonist and the LA PD detective who is inadvertently drawn into the terroristic confrontation. Bateman can’t match Alan Rickman’s energy as Hans Gruber in “Die Hard” but he doesn’t try. In “Carry-On” he’s a subdued avatar for evil, and maybe a symbol for the American imperative of capitalism at any cost. Deadwyler’s portrayal of Det. Elena Cole pretty much stole the show for me. I’d like to see her in a movie or TV show of her own. What else can I say? She was sensational!
If I were to grade “Carry-On” I’d give it a solid B. It’s a good enough action movie that’s slow to get going, and maybe I didn’t care as much as I should have about the protagonist and his love interest. But the action is terrific and the other characters are sufficiently engaging to carry me over the hump.
Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and a writer.
Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
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“A Good Day to Die Hard” Starring Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch. Directed by John Moore. 97 minutes. Rated R.
Mladen’s take
Let’s do the numbers. The numbers of objects destroyed in recently released “A Good Day to Die Hard,” starring Bruce Willis as berserk New York cop John McClane.
I estimate 3,000 acres of windows, 83 cars and trucks, and at least three dozen people were smashed or blown to bits. And that’s just in the first 15 minutes of this film, the fifth in the “Die Hard” franchise.
Mayhem is what I expect when Bruce Willis reprises his McClane character but the action must be sensible. The first four “Die Hards” possessed useful violence. “A Good Day,” which has McClane and his CIA agent son administering punishment to Russians in Moscow and Chernobyl, was a blur of destruction.
Between flying cars and discovery of a stash of weapons-grade uranium, the McClanes move toward repairing their broken relationship. Apparently, there’s nothing like blood, brain splatter and radioactivity to bring a father and son closer.
R-rated “A Good Day” is almost completely flawed. Its counter double-cross is as predictable as my son’s reaction when I tell him to do a chore.
McClane’s son, Jack, is played by Jai Courtney. His biceps are bigger than my head but Courtney’s physique and good looks can’t compensate for his uninspired performance. Jack the CIA man has no charisma. Jack isn’t particularly likeable. Jack is a dolt whose aged father has to rescue him again and again.
The movie’s weakness could be attributed to poor screenwriting or the director’s over-reliance on action, but I fault Willis.
I was bored by the movie because Willis was bored by the movie. His one-liners were delivered without flourish or joy or that subtle exclamation that Willis always managed in past “Die Hards” when he survived the unsurvivable.
Recall the momentous and frenetic scene near the end of the fourth installment, “Live Free or Die Hard.”
McClane is driving a tractor-trailer on an elevated interstate. His nemesis, a computer hacking nut job, sics a Marine Corps F-35 on poor McClane.
The Lightning II targets McClane with missiles, blowing away pilings that collapse part of the interstate.
Next comes the cannon.
Shells blow holes in the tractor-trailer. It’s almost tipped on its side but McClane presses on.
He ends up on a piece of inclined interstate as the truck burns. More cannon fire. McClane rolls out of the truck and falls onto the tail section of the F-35.
Then, a piece of debris is swallowed by the fighter’s hover fan and it explodes. Out of control, the F-35 begins to rotate, flinging McClane onto another piece of battle-damaged, slanting highway.
The battered cop slides down the gritty road to land on his feet. As McClane limps from the wreckage – truck, aircraft and roadway all smoking – he looks back, grins and says, “Whew.”
Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Perfectly executed. Perfectly understated. Perfectly unbelievable and perfectly plausible simultaneously.
None of that happens in “A Good Day.” It’s droll and the movie’s special effects come nowhere near to rescuing it. After this “Die Hard,” the franchise should have no trouble dying easily.
Del’s take
One night in 1988 I visited a local movie theater to catch a movie called “Die Hard.” I had few expectations – the movie starred a television actor whose work seemed incompatible with the badass requirements of an action hero.
I came away with my mind officially blown. “Die Hard” was a classic. Every aspect – acting, script, pacing, even the score – was first rate. I saw it again and when the video came out, I happily sprang $25 for the VHS tape.
What a difference 25 years makes.
“A Good Day to Die Hard” is a ridiculous farce – not so much an action movie as a disaster flick, and the disaster is the movie itself. Fans of the original movie and its scrappy protagonist, John McClane, will be shaking their heads and declaring the franchise dead. Another dud like “A Good Day” will cement that demise.
The shark has definitely jumped Nakatomi Plaza.
Mladen has already filled you in with the plot details. I’ll add the first 10 minutes of the movie are boring beyond description, and make little sense. When the action commences it is a pointless destructionfest with every car east of the former Iron Curtain smashed beyond comprehension, and no attempt made to elaborate on the overall direction of the movie. I found myself wondering if I were watching a POV rendition of a video game player’s chapter of “Grand Theft Auto.”
Worse, Bruce Willis’ character, John McClane, is reduced from a hapless but insurmountable everyman whom trouble seems to find, into a mumbling accessory whose inane and humorless pronouncements contradict the film’s subtext that while he is old, McClane still has much to offer the world of crime-fighting.
Next come the awful cliches – McClane is estranged from his son yet flies halfway across the world to rescue him from a Russian jail where he is being held on suspicion of attempted murder. The two meet amidst a chaotic situation and spend the next hour snipping at one another, the son constantly reminding the dad of how his absence ruined the son’s life until finally, near the film’s climax, the two reach a kind of rapprochement that you just know will have them walking off into the smoky, debris-filled sunset shoulder to shoulder, if not arm in arm, as the movie limps to its closing curtain.
Missing is the sharp-witted detective with the snappy comebacks whom every bad guy underestimates, replaced by a grumpy pensioner who ceaselessly complains his vacation has been spoiled by a thankless child. “A Good Day” lacks the single most important ingredient of a “Die Hard” film – fun.
Ironically, on the same day I saw “A Good Day” I also watched “Skyfall,” the latest James Bond installment. It deals with a similar theme, that of an aging crime fighter who may have lived beyond his usefulness. But “Skyfall” is Mozart beside “A Good Day’s” bubblegum pop. Smartly written and skillfully directed, “Skyfall” proves there’s hope for the “Die Hard” franchise.
If Sam Mendes decides to take on another failing action hero property, I can only expect John McClane to gleefully declare, “Yippy kay yay, …”
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and public information officer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.