If you're still on the fence over whether or not "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie — it is, by the way, but feel free to carry on with the debate — "Carry-On" is an action movie that is definitely a Christmas movie, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

It's set on Christmas Eve and features a bunch of holiday songs on its soundtrack, including a fight inside a speeding car set to Wham's "Last Christmas." If that's not a Christmas movie, then I'm the Grinch.

Taron Egerton is Ethan Kopek, a TSA agent at LAX, who's about to have a bah humbug of a holiday. He's targeted by a highly trained group who intend to sneak a chemical agent onto an airplane, and it's his security line the bag carrying the weapon will pass through. All he's gotta do is look the other way when it does.

If he doesn't, he'll have a problem. The bad guys have eyes on him and also his girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson), who has a baby on the way. If he makes a move, they'll kill her. What's a guy to do?

So it's essentially "Die Hard" in an airport security line, and director Jaume Collet-Serra, helmer of four Liam Neeson thrillers, keeps the tension high in this taut game of cat and mouse. It helps that the cat is played by Jason Bateman, who brings a threatening sense of menace to his anonymous character, who claims not to be a terrorist, but rather a freelance facilitator helping the group carry out the attack.

Either way, he's in control, and he plays his part all cool and droll and in that familiar Bateman fashion. Ethan is in a position where he can only react to what Bateman's character throws at him, and the script by T.J. Fixman and Michael Green keeps coming up with clever ways to sustain the action. There's even a knock-down, drag-out fight scene along the conveyor belts in the airport baggage area.

Danielle Deadwyler plays a cop investigating the case, "Breaking Bad's" Dean Norris is Ethan's terse but fair boss. And Collet-Serra makes this a slick, efficient thriller a welcome addition to the Christmas action canon. For a real holiday treat, watch it back-to-back with "Die Hard."

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'CARRY-ON'

Grade: B

MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong violence, bloody images, some language and suggestive references)

Running time: 1:59

How to watch: Netflix

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