Recensioni de* critic*

This Carry-On really could have leaned in more to the classic trappings.

If Carry-On borrows its setting from Die Harder, the radio banter and short-wave powerplay is pure McClane and Gruber.

“Carry-On” doesn’t aspire to be too much more than good, trashy, yuletide fun, but it consistently over-delivers on that front in the process of telling a sweet little story about a guy who learns that a difficult career setback doesn’t have to result in a lifetime of surrender.

Serra directed six airport novel suspense yarns between 2009 and 2018, four of them starring Liam Neeson, with one of them taking place at an actual airport. While “Orphan” and “The Shallows” remain his best and tautest works, “Carry-On” is still a return to form. It’s a solid and absurd high-concept b-movie.

Collet-Serra (Black Adam, The Shallows) crafts a satisfying surveillance thriller reminiscent of Eagle Eye (2008) and Phone Booth (2002)... And similar to these other films, Carry-On builds its suspense on the frightening reality of the state’s expanded surveillance power and the erosion of individual privacy in the name of national security. It might not spawn any advanced theories about these latter themes, but it does serve as a reminder of this omnipresent system’s relative novelty.

The film is as fiercely economical as Collet-Serra’s best work, namely The Shallows.