Carry-On Movie Review

Most evenings these days we turn on Netflix and find a Christmas movie to watch. I had the remote last night so I got to decide. I didn’t realize it was the premeire day for “Carry-On”. It was classified as a Christmas movie and looked a little more exciting that most of the movies we’ve been watching.  

I enjoyed “Carry-On”. It kept me engaged and entertained. It got a little silly at times, but overall it was good. It reminded me of old-school action-thrillers I watched as a kid. The premise of the movie had a lot of promise. Actors were solid. The story didn’t live up to what it could have been in my opinion. 

I don’t need a lot of plot complexity to have fun with an action movie. I do need to have what is being presented to me make sense in the world where it exists. It wasn’t that things didn’t make sense… it just felt more dumb than what it needed to be. 

I like Taron Edgerton as our hero and Jason Bateman as the villian. They had good performances, but things got really messy at the end and I didn’t think the story gave them much to work with in the 3rd act. 

It is interesting to think about how one would react when they are faced with variations of the trolley problem. In this instance Edgerton has to choose beween his pregnant girlfriend and a plane full of 250 that he doesn’t know. It doesn’t turn out to be quite that straight-forward, but that is the essence of it. 

“Carry-On” is a worthwhile watch. It is a type of movie we don’t see very often these days. I don’t think it is extremely well executed. It mostly squanders the opportunity to be a great modern entry into the genre. 

Challengers

I streamed “Challengers” on Prime Video. I don’t think it is a bad movie, but I didn’t like it at all. Seemed like it wanted to be a serious and dramatic film, but it didn’t work. 

The movie is about 3 young tennis players that form a love triangle. We follow them through a 15 year period of their lives. The entire way it all felt very silly to me. I think the story is silly. The characters come across as very one-note. This is a combination of the plot itself and the performances by the actors. I like Zendaya, but I don’t think she was cut out for this role. Mostly she just made weird faces to indicate drama was happening.

I did like how the movie revealed information about the relationship between the characters. It doled it out in a way that you shifted who you were rooting for. But in the end I felt apathetic toward all of them. 

As I watched, I kept asking myself whether I thought the movie wanted me to take it seriously. I could never tell. I did get invested in seeing how it all ended… and I was not dissapointed. And, I got a clear answer. The very last sequence made me laugh. 

This movie has been reviewed quite negatively. But, it performed well in the theater. I suppose if you advertise Zendaya in a threesome you will get some interest. I mean, there are a couple sexy parts… but don’t watch it expecting a hot movie. It is not. If it was trying to be, it failed at that too. There is no romance or passion in this movie at all. In fact, the dialog of the movie points out the fact they are always talking about tennis, even when they are about to get it on. 

If you have Prime I would probably recommend watching “Challengers”. It is well made. It is interesting. I wasn’t bored by it. But, I don’t think it is a very good movie, and I don’t think it has much of a point. I’d be interested to hear what others think. 

The filmmaker has an interesting style. We watch tennis matches through the POV of the ball. I didn’t like that, but I did like the 90’s techno synth soundtrack. It plays over most of the tennis matches as well as the fights along the way. I also like how Applebee’s was prominently featured as a date spot. It took me back. 

Trap

Trap is a preposterous movie. It isn’t terrible, but it cannot be taken seriously at all. I only knew of its
existence because it was featured on How Did This Get Made & The Flop House. I figured I had to watch it so I’d be able to listen to those episodes of my favorite podcasts.  

As I write this Trap is available to stream on Max. It is written and directed by M. Knight Shyamalan. It stars Josh Hartnett and Shyamalan’s daughter (Saleka Shyamalan). Shamalan’s daughter is trying to launch a singing career, and that is the only explanation I can think of for why this movie was conceived and created. 

The premise of the movie is that there is a concert of an artist that teen girls love. We are following a father & daughter who are attending this concert as a reward for her good grades. There are police everywhere and we quickly find out the concert is a trap set for a serial killer the police knew would be attending… and that serial killer is the sweet father we have been following. 

There are a lot of plot inconsistencies and silliness in this movie. At times it is enjoyable, at others it is cringe-inducing. 

I got interested in this movie from the beginning. Even though the concert trap was a ridiculous idea from the jump, I enjoyed watching this guy try to figure out how he was going to escape. The first half was totally watchable. The second half was real dumb. While Josh Hartnett stuck it out to the bitter end, the 2nd half of the movie prominently features Saleka Shyamalan, and she is real bad at acting out her father’s idiotic plot. 

The movie also stars Hayley Mills in the role of FBI profiler who conveniently provides exposition over the walkie-talkies for most of the movie. Haley Mills famously played the twins in the movie “Parent Trap”, which I have to assume is a joke. This movie is about a parent who is trapped. It is all very dumb. 

This is a bad movie, but it is entertaining. I wasn’t bored. It is the type of film you watch with a group of friends and make fun of.