Netflix And Chill: Carry-On (2024)

Taron Egerton plays Etahn Kopek, a young TSA agent who ends up having a very difficult shift in a busy airport on Christmas Eve. It's all thanks to a mysterious stranger (Jason Bateman) who ends up threatening Kopek to let a piece of luggage through the security system that really shouldn't be anywhere near an airport. Kopek doesn't want to co-operate, of course, but there's also another villain (Theo Rossi) keeping an eye on his pregnant partner, Nora (Sofia Carson). Meanwhile, one detective (Elena Cole, played by Danielle Deadwyler) senses something unusual about the latest case she is working on, and her investigation may eventually lead her to the same airport where our hero is desperately trying to stall for time.

Sometimes I watch a film and have such a strong reaction to it (whether positive or negative) that looking around online to see myself being very much in the minority makes me wonder if I missed something major. Despite what many others may tell you, Carry-On is awful, and not often in a fun way. I've seen people praise it as a throwback to simple action thrillers of the '90s, but that is just being rude to the simple action thrillers of the '90s. I've also seen people go on about how it's just a bit of fun that allows viewers to switch their brain off and enjoy the ride. There's switching your brain off and then there's being placed into an induced-coma to stop you asking too many questions. This film would have to do the latter to be considered anything more than an insulting mess.

Let's start with that dire script, written by T. J. Fixman, who unsurprisingly has a history made up of various Ratchet & Clank projects, as well as one other videogame. I don't always mind films that set everything up in entirely obvious ways, offering a comforting familiarity with how predictable it all is, but there's no finesse here at all. Even worse, there's absolutely no attempt to make things feel plausible. The main plan is silly enough, once you think about it for more than a moment, but would be perfectly fine if the rest of the film didn't try to find a breaking point for anyone suspending their disbelief. Want to warn your loved one about a potential sniper threatening their life? Do it in front of the biggest set of windows possible, as opposed to a backroom that has already been described as a total blindspot earlier on in the film. We're told many times at the start of the movie how busy the airport will be on this particular day, which doesn't seem to matter when people are looking for other airport staff or members of the security team. And let's not even waste energy rolling eyes at how amazingly quiet the airport car park becomes when someone is being chased by a van, and then a gun-toting killer who vacates said van. Those are just the "highlights", but you get the idea. None of the dialogue feels natural and flowing, and everyone is hampered by the silliness of the central idea.

As for director Jaume Collet-Serra, he represses any of his style and skill to deliver something that simply sits alongside numerous other "identi-kit" features paid for by Netflix. Okay, he no longer always shows off the eye he had while making the likes of House Of Wax and Orphan, but I defy anyone to watch this without credits and then name him as the director. 

I wish I could say that the cast at least work to improve the material, but they don't. Egerton is someone I normally enjoy watching onscreen, but he has to spend a lot of his screentime here responding to a voice speaking to him via an earpiece. How does he show his worry and stress? A twitchy left eye. It's distractingly overdone, and he isn't helped by the fact that his character has to wade further into the waters of implausibility than anyone else. Bateman is decent, but not entirely convincing as the manipulative criminal mastermind. Carson and Deadwyler are both slightly underused (although Deadwyler ends up involved in what is arguably the worst sequence in the film, an eye-wateringly bad stunt sequence involving cars soundtracked to "Last Christmas" on the radio), Rossi never feels as competent as he should, and everyone else, from Logan Marshall-Green and Dean Norris to Sinqua Walls and Curtiss Cook, is completely wasted.

I liked some of the very end scenes, but even that felt like some small consolation after expecting another twist that didn't happen. I wasn't just unhappy as the end credits rolled, I was bloody annoyed at once again being won over by a trailer for a film that turned out to be, while harmless and fairly inoffensive, another slick and empty waste of time (for both myself and those involved in making it).

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: Emily The Criminal (2022)

Although I like her onscreen presence, and although she tends to pick a variety of interesting projects, Aubrey Plaza being in a movie isn't ever a guarantee that I will enjoy it. That seems to be changing though, especially in the movies that also have her serving in some kind of producer role, and Emily The Criminal is one of her best roles yet.

A feature debut from writer-director John Patton Ford, this is the tale of a young woman who struggles to get a decent break in life. She is weighed down by mistakes in her past, including a felony charge and a whole lot of student loan debt, but she knows that the current system is making things much harder than they need to be. Eventually offered the chance to make a quick $200 in a credit card scam, Emily sees a way to massively improve her life. The scam is overseen by Youcef (Theo Rossi), who ends up teaching Emily more and more ways to improve her profit-making opportunities. But with greater reward comes greater risks, of course.

While I went into this expecting a decent little character study, from the title and the marketing of the movie, I soon realised that it was interested in offering a bit more than that. Emily The Criminal IS all about Emily, and her new-found talent for some criminal activities, but it's also a reminder of just how badly the system works against people who struggle and sweat through years to make up for the ongoing repercussions of past mistakes. Although it won't happen to everyone, many people will have made one or two mistakes in their youth that lands them in trouble with the police, and even more people will end up in some kind of debt (planned or unplanned) at least once. Emily The Criminal shows how hard it is to move away from those things, especially in a society that has now seemingly stacked the odds in favour of employers who want to make use of unpaid interns, employees trapped by the need to keep working all hours of the day to make the most of their low wage, and the apparently blissful move towards a "gig economy". That last part was meant to be completely sarcastic, by the way.

Ford packs a lot of great little moments into the 97-minute runtime, whether it's showing us Emily attending a job interview being conducted by someone trying to blindside her with information about her past, the tense transactions where Emily wants her fraud to go undetected until she is away from the shop/seller/buyer, or a fantastic exchange between our lead and a powerful employer (Gina Gershon) who thinks she is doing someone a huge favour by offering them, well, something that isn't a huge favour.

Plaza is excellent in her role, adding a tooughness and determination to her usual constant eye-rolling at the awfulness of the world and people around her. It's arguably the best role she's had in a long time, and she sinks her teeth into it with vigour. Rossi is also great in the role of Youcef, a young man who ends up running a successful crime scene without having to be the typically brutal and unfeeling crime boss. The real sense of menace comes from Youcef's partner/cousin, Khalil, and Jonathan Avigdori does very well with that character. Gershon tries hard to steal her one scene, and it's a great back and forth with Plaza there, and there is also excellent support from Megalyn Echikunwoke (a friend, arguably), Bernardo Badillo (a colleague who leads Emily to her new "career opportunity"), as well as Craig Stark, Sarah Allyn Bauer, and everyone else helping to make the onscreen world feel busier and more realistic than it actually is.

I'm not sure if this will win over anyone yet to come around to Plaza, she's an acquired taste and some just won't ever take to the various shades of her standard onscreen persona, but it's certainly a film that I recommend everyone makes time for. Some will view it as a justification of criminals committing crimes. I view it as a condemnation of a society that doesn't do anything more than give lip service to the ideas of rehabilitation, self-care, and self-improvement.

9/10

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Netflix And Chill: Army Of The Dead (2021)

I went in without any expectations, I assure you I did. Zack Snyder isn't someone I have a very strong opinion on, despite his ability to stir up lots of fans online and get away with much more than most directors would. I like his visual style, he's done a couple of great modern blockbusters, and I'll still try to view anything he directs with an open mind.

Unfortunately, it seems that Snyder, like one or two other big name directors I could mention, has started to believe his own hype. And may be surrounded by people who don't say no often enough. There's no other reason I can think of for the succession of bad decisions made here. And I will roll my eyes and wag my finger at anyone who forgives all other errors because "zombie tiger . . . coooool."

The plot is simple. A nasty accident means that there's a massive outbreak of zombieitis in Las Vegas. There's a lot of carnage, and then Las Vegas is basically quarantined, thanks to a handy complete ring of large containers placed around it. If you're already unable to handle this level of disbelief, it just gets worse from here. Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) is tasked by Mr. Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to put together a team and head into Las Vegas, with the aim of collecting a massive sum of money from a casino vault before the place is flattened by nuclear rockets that don't cause any other issues for the surrounding area. Yes, this is a film in which a plan to enter a zombie-infested area just to snatch millions of dollars becomes one of the least dumb things in it, certainly by the time you get to that nuclear rocket strike.

It's also a film that features a fleeting cameo by Sean Spicer. At that point I knew that it would have to work bloody hard to win me back around. It never did.

There's some good stuff here. The gore isn't tamed down, there's an interesting variety to the zombies, and Bautista is a good leading man. It also helps that they ended up with Tig Notaro in the role of Marianne Peters, the pilot for this exploit. Notaro, from her very first scene to her last, is gold. And I'm not completely oblivious to the coolness of a zombie bloody tiger, which is involved in what is the very best death sequence in the whole film.

That's all I can think of for the positives. The script, co-written by Snyder, Shay Hatten, and Joby Harold, is mostly awful. Everyone is given too much time, no matter how minor their characters should be, the motivations are unbelievable, and the attempt to establish an actual society within the zombie realm is a big mis-step, especially when you get to a reveal in the third act that is properly hilarious when I suspect it was meant to be a serious attempt to surprise people. Surprises are lacking throughout, from the characters who turn out to have other agendas to the inevitable resolution to different relationship issues.

The runtime, just under two and a half hours, is another issue. This is a film that should have been all about forward momentum, especially if that would help to distract from the poor script, but it meanders around instead, with Snyder needing to show off every idea that popped into his head while creating the film.

Although the cast aren't bad, some are better than others. Standouts are Bautista (not great, but feels just right in his role), Notaro, Nora Arnezeder (playing someone who can guide the team into Las Vegas), Matthias Schweighöfer (the safecracker), and Garret Dillahunt. But when is Dillahunt not a standout? Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, and Raúl Castillo do what is necessary, but are either hampered by the script or just not as good as some of their co-stars.

It's not that I hated watching every minute of this. I just wished that I'd spent two and a half hours watching something much better. And there's a much better film to be made from this premise. Snyder, however, does what Snyder does. And that includes filling up the soundtrack with some horrendous cover songs, despite starting well with another bit of Richard Cheese (used so memorably in Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead remake).

I've already seen some high praise for this, and it's confounding. Everyone can like whatever they like, and it's always different strokes for different folks, but I can't help thinking that some of the people rating the film so highly are simply looking to continue keeping the pedestal upright that Snyder has managed to get himself placed on. 

4/10

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