Coventry
Joined Nov 2002
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Friendly note to approximately half of the reviewers around here: it's not because an action movie takes place at an airport on Christmas Eve that it's automatically a "Die Hard 2" rip-off. Let us judge "Carry-On" based on what it really is: a straightforward and clever - albeit not very plausible - thriller/action movie with a handful of genuinely intense moments and good performances from the two lead actors.
Egerton ("Rocketman") is amiable in a role that for sure would be played by Liam Neeson if he wasn't 30 years too old. Ethan Kopek is a TSA agent at the Los Angeles airport who, on Christmas Eve and on the first day at the scanning machines, gets forced and blackmailed into accommodating a terroristic act. Via headphones, Ethan receives instructions from a stoic psychopath (Jason Bateman in a sublimely atypical role) to let a dangerously lethal piece of carry-on luggage pass through the security checks. I won't reveal much more but be assured there are plenty of twists and complications. Some are absurd, others are quite ingenious.
In short, it's a Netflix movie that both my fifteen-year-old son and I enjoyed equally, and that is rather exceptional considering our huge age gap and differences in taste. Then, we also watched it together on Christmas day and that was a wonderful moments, so you won't hear me complain about "Carry-On" very soon.
Egerton ("Rocketman") is amiable in a role that for sure would be played by Liam Neeson if he wasn't 30 years too old. Ethan Kopek is a TSA agent at the Los Angeles airport who, on Christmas Eve and on the first day at the scanning machines, gets forced and blackmailed into accommodating a terroristic act. Via headphones, Ethan receives instructions from a stoic psychopath (Jason Bateman in a sublimely atypical role) to let a dangerously lethal piece of carry-on luggage pass through the security checks. I won't reveal much more but be assured there are plenty of twists and complications. Some are absurd, others are quite ingenious.
In short, it's a Netflix movie that both my fifteen-year-old son and I enjoyed equally, and that is rather exceptional considering our huge age gap and differences in taste. Then, we also watched it together on Christmas day and that was a wonderful moments, so you won't hear me complain about "Carry-On" very soon.
When is a remake considered a remake? No, I don't want to raise any existential, rhetorical, or philosophical questions; - just wondering because I don't necessarily see the 2019 version of "Black Christmas" as a remake of the almighty 1974 classic. Sure, the events take place on a university campus around Christmas time, but the plot - and especially the denouement - are very different. And luckily so, I daresay, because if the dumb plot twists of this script had featured in the original, it probably never would have become a genre landmark.
The 2006 version, starring Lacey Chabert and a whole lot of other contemporary scream queens, is much more of a straightforward remake. When it was released, I was one of the many people who labelled it as a redundant, disgraceful, and terribly inferior to the Bob Clark original, but if you now see what a chaotic and frustratingly woke version writer/director Sophia Takal came up with, "Black Christmas" 2006 isn't so bad in retrospect.
The Christmas holiday break is approaching and a bunch of girls from different sororities are being stalked and killed by a maniacal killer with a mask. So much for the resemblance to the original from 1974. The female main characters have been completely upgraded to #MeToo and Black Lives Matter figureheads. These female students fight back hard against the male fellow students (and teachers) who still consider themselves superior and think that they can violate female students without consequences. The result is that every man in "Black Christmas" is very caricatured as either a sexist pig or a spineless sulk. The girls, on the other hand, are feminist to the extreme. This means preachy and no longer objective. The plot ends with an absurd and anything but believable twist that doesn't belong in a slasher at all, but rather in a very bad & low-budget B-movie about witchcraft or something.
It could all have been quite fun and entertaining if the idiotic plot was camouflaged by extremely bloody murders and gratuitous blood of sex. But the murders are tame and mostly out off-screen (just to get a darn PG-13 rating) and the girls are too emancipated to walk around in underwear. In fun woke movies (such as "The Slumber Party Massacre") this is creatively solved by gratuitous male nudity, but "Black Christmas" is not that clever.
The film does get two extra points. One because Cary Elwes plays a very silly role with a lot of dedication, and another one because I thought the act/song "Up in the Frat House" was funny.
The 2006 version, starring Lacey Chabert and a whole lot of other contemporary scream queens, is much more of a straightforward remake. When it was released, I was one of the many people who labelled it as a redundant, disgraceful, and terribly inferior to the Bob Clark original, but if you now see what a chaotic and frustratingly woke version writer/director Sophia Takal came up with, "Black Christmas" 2006 isn't so bad in retrospect.
The Christmas holiday break is approaching and a bunch of girls from different sororities are being stalked and killed by a maniacal killer with a mask. So much for the resemblance to the original from 1974. The female main characters have been completely upgraded to #MeToo and Black Lives Matter figureheads. These female students fight back hard against the male fellow students (and teachers) who still consider themselves superior and think that they can violate female students without consequences. The result is that every man in "Black Christmas" is very caricatured as either a sexist pig or a spineless sulk. The girls, on the other hand, are feminist to the extreme. This means preachy and no longer objective. The plot ends with an absurd and anything but believable twist that doesn't belong in a slasher at all, but rather in a very bad & low-budget B-movie about witchcraft or something.
It could all have been quite fun and entertaining if the idiotic plot was camouflaged by extremely bloody murders and gratuitous blood of sex. But the murders are tame and mostly out off-screen (just to get a darn PG-13 rating) and the girls are too emancipated to walk around in underwear. In fun woke movies (such as "The Slumber Party Massacre") this is creatively solved by gratuitous male nudity, but "Black Christmas" is not that clever.
The film does get two extra points. One because Cary Elwes plays a very silly role with a lot of dedication, and another one because I thought the act/song "Up in the Frat House" was funny.
Two hours and twenty minutes! That's how long you are supporting and rooting for the heroes in "The Piggyback", but in the end, you still feel defeated beyond recovery. I read recently in an article that the Duffer brothers consider the episodes in season four and the upcoming season five more as 'mini movies' compared to the relatively short episodes (approximately 50 minutes) of seasons 1-3. Well, two hours and twenty minutes is not what I consider mini. It's even much longer than the movies I usually watch, but luckily this is a season's finale and thus chock-full of action & suspense for practically the entire running time.
The different small groups didn't make it back in time to Hawkins to be with their friends for the end battle, but that doesn't mean they can't help. The California group, stuck somewhere between Nevada and Indiana, prepare a bathtub for El so that she can "piggyback" onto Max and confront Vecna. If there's one person the world needs in order to be saved, it's Eleven and her regained powers! In Siberia, Hopper, Joyce, and the reluctant Murray, oddly decide to return back to the prison and eliminate as many particles and Demogorgon-monsters as possible. This feels an awful lot like a redundant sub plot just to give them "something to do". I didn't have the impression that barbecuing those Russian Demogorgons had any impact on Vecna or made him the least bit weaker. Back home in Hawkins, every group member bravely executes his/her role of the plan, but naturally complications arise. The basketball team still believes Eddie is leading a satanic cult and interferes the battle, and Vecna himself also anticipated on the attack.
In my more than 30 years of being a horror/cult fanatic, I have always had a big admiration for movies and television series that dare to come up with bleak and severely unhappy endings. It requires courage and self-confidence to do so. Now that "Stranger Things" ends with a massively desolate cliffhanger, I don't like it so much. I care too much for these kids, I'm afraid. And yes, of course I know there will be a final season and everyone - including Max - will be fine eventually, but still it hurt to see Hawkins in so much pain.
"The Piggyback" is undeniably a formidable finale, with numerous of great action highlights, non-stop creepy imagery, goosebump-music (Metallica!), and sincere emotions. There are also quite a lot of flaws, but the most important thing remains that season four was once again qualitative and bingewatch-worthy television greatness.
The different small groups didn't make it back in time to Hawkins to be with their friends for the end battle, but that doesn't mean they can't help. The California group, stuck somewhere between Nevada and Indiana, prepare a bathtub for El so that she can "piggyback" onto Max and confront Vecna. If there's one person the world needs in order to be saved, it's Eleven and her regained powers! In Siberia, Hopper, Joyce, and the reluctant Murray, oddly decide to return back to the prison and eliminate as many particles and Demogorgon-monsters as possible. This feels an awful lot like a redundant sub plot just to give them "something to do". I didn't have the impression that barbecuing those Russian Demogorgons had any impact on Vecna or made him the least bit weaker. Back home in Hawkins, every group member bravely executes his/her role of the plan, but naturally complications arise. The basketball team still believes Eddie is leading a satanic cult and interferes the battle, and Vecna himself also anticipated on the attack.
In my more than 30 years of being a horror/cult fanatic, I have always had a big admiration for movies and television series that dare to come up with bleak and severely unhappy endings. It requires courage and self-confidence to do so. Now that "Stranger Things" ends with a massively desolate cliffhanger, I don't like it so much. I care too much for these kids, I'm afraid. And yes, of course I know there will be a final season and everyone - including Max - will be fine eventually, but still it hurt to see Hawkins in so much pain.
"The Piggyback" is undeniably a formidable finale, with numerous of great action highlights, non-stop creepy imagery, goosebump-music (Metallica!), and sincere emotions. There are also quite a lot of flaws, but the most important thing remains that season four was once again qualitative and bingewatch-worthy television greatness.