'Carry-On' review: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman star in welcome action throwback

WHAT IT'S ABOUT On Christmas Eve at Los Angeles International Airport, TSA agent Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) finds himself at a crossroads.

His girlfriend Nora Parisi (Sofia Carson), who also works at the airport, has just told him she's pregnant. That gives him a new motivation to improve his floundering professional life. After being rejected from the police academy, he landed on his feet at the TSA, but he's never been promoted. His boss Phil Sarkowski, played by the great Dean Norris ("Breaking Bad"), makes it clear that no promotion is coming, unless he proves that he wants to be there.

Well, Ethan says, today is the day. So he gets himself placed at the front of the baggage-scanning line, just in time for an earbud to mysteriously appear in a tray. On the other end of the earbud is an anonymous mercenary (Jason Bateman), with a heavily armed and tech-savvy sidekick, who tells Ethan that he needs to let a certain bag through the security screening process with no questions asked, or else Nora will be killed.

The thriller is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, whose resume includes multiple Liam Neeson movies. Danielle Deadwyler ("Till") co-stars as a tough cop who is onto the shenanigans.

MY SAY This is the sort of action movie Hollywood made frequently during the 1990s. The examples of these pictures set in and around airports and airplanes are numerous: "Die Hard 2," "Executive Decision," "Passenger 57," "Air Force One," and the list goes on.

Aside from a few technological details and other general contemporary tweaks, "Carry-On" would have fit in perfectly well during that long-gone era.

And that's the best compliment to be paid to the movie, which benefits from the filmmaker's keen sense for how to stage compelling action sequences, strong performances from Egerton and especially Bateman, and an overall sense of not ever taking itself too seriously.

Of course, the screenplay is littered with logical holes. For example: Bateman's character maintains his control over Ethan in part by having a constant set of eyes on him, except for when he goes into a secure TSA room with no camera feeds. One would think he might have been able to alert someone there.

If only anyone else believed Deadwyler's Elena Cole, the drama might have been stopped much earlier. But they never do trust that lone cop, do they?

But we expect that out of these movies and embrace it, especially when the picture in question also has a general Hitchcockian flair. It finds plenty of drama and suspense in the psychological interplay between the characters. Egerton brings an edge to the protagonist derived out of a keen sense of self-disgust, while Bateman again abandons his once archetypal droll, comic persona, for a darker and more sinister place.

Most importantly of all, the movie is fun. The action scenes spare no expense. It would work just as well on a big screen as it does on your TV. What more could you want?

BOTTOM LINE A welcome action throwback.