Kris Pivato

“Carry-On” With Your Day 1 hour and 59 minutes of pure cinematic regret. Netflix’s latest release, Carry-On, is a staggering misstep that’s as tedious as it is forgettable. Far from being “a modern Die Hard,” the film feels more like a watered-down, poorly conceived imitation that doesn’t even begin to justify its runtime. The plot is a tangled mess, lacking originality or coherence, and lurching between predictable clichés and outright absurdity. What’s meant to be a high-stakes thriller instead feels utterly flat, with the car crash scene—a supposed highlight—standing out as one of the most laughably inept sequences in recent memory. Unlike the proverbial trainwreck you can’t look away from, this crash is so uninspired you’ll physically want to get up and leave the room just so you can look away. Even the performances from Jason Bateman and Taron Egerton, while competent, can’t salvage the lacklustre writing and paper-thin character development. Their attempts at injecting emotion and tension are undercut by a script that borders on parody, leaving their efforts feeling wasted. Any chemistry between the cast is buried beneath stilted dialogue and implausible scenarios. What truly sets Carry-On apart is its complete inability to evoke any meaningful reaction. Where a good thriller grips you with suspense or emotion, this film merely drags, offering little more than unearned melodrama and a pacing so glacial it makes the runtime feel twice as long. The cinematography, while technically adequate, fails to elevate the material, and the score is so generic it fades into the background, much like the rest of the film. It’s as if every element was assembled on autopilot, resulting in a movie devoid of impact, style, or purpose. In a sea of streaming options, Carry-On sinks straight to the bottom. It’s the kind of film that makes you question how it got greenlit in the first place. If you value your time, skip this entirely and “Carry-On” with your day—you’ll thank yourself later.