Carry-On Review – Taron Egerton Channels Kenneth Connor in Deceptive Netflix Thriller | Film

For vulgar-minded Brits, a Hollywood film title sometimes carries its own unintended associations and unfortunate resonances. Many were pained by the vehement reaction of some here in 2017 to the title of Robert Redford’s serious film Our Souls at Night. Now here’s a moderate new piece of Netflix product, a thriller about a bomb smuggled onto a plane in carry-on luggage, starring Taron Egerton as Ethan, the airport security officer in a tense situation, and Jason Bateman as the sinister explosives mastermind . It’s called … Carry-On.

That title is self-explanatory for anyone in the United States. But it’s sure to get UK Netflix subscribers very over-excited, assuming they’ll surely want the biggest film series in cinema history to be rebooted with a sexy new cast. Egerton is a Brit. Couldn’t he have warned Netflix that the film should possibly have been re-titled for the UK?

And it has to be said that Egerton, with his hangdog look and air of painful misery, has basically landed the Kenneth Connor role. His girlfriend, who incidentally has the very Carry On name Nora, is played by Sofia Carson; she is pregnant and nags Ethan to follow his dreams and apply to the police academy again. I spent the whole movie wondering how Joan Sims would have handled the role, probably giving Ethan the odd clip around the ear. The gruff, wizened airport security chief is played by Dean Norris; if only his character’s lined face was allowed to occasionally crack a grin as he made a hissing haah-haah-haah laugh, then it’s a shoo-in for Sidney James. And as for Jason Bateman’s sinister terrorist, his face set in haughty disapproval and contempt… he can only channel Kenneth Williams.

This Carry-On really could have leaned more towards the classic trappings. While fighting the baddies, Egerton could have denounced the infamy, the infamy, they all have it… Well, it wasn’t to be.