The “talking villain” is played by Jason Bateman. So as you might guess, he damned near talks us all to death.

The scenario is within the realm of possibilities, but juiced and dragged-out with so many eye-rolling “Hollywood” twists that it abandons that realm for “Oh come ON” laughs.

The hero, played by Taron Egerton, sprints through the bowels of LAX as if his life and the life of Ms. Out-of-his-league (Sofia Carson) depends on it. But we see “outs” that he might take, counter-measures he could end this whole unfolding disaster with, even in a state of panic.

The jovial, welcoming nature of TSA agents on a holiday weekend at one of America’s busiest airports is pure fantasy, even if the abusive travelers are on-the-nose accurate.

But at least the luggage inspection/x-ray line thriller “Carry-On” carries you along. It plays. Director Jaume Collet-Serra reminds us he handled the suspense of “The Commuter” and “Run All Night” well even as he never quite makes us forget the insufferable excess of “Jungle Cruise” and “Black Adam.”

“Rocket Man” Egerton is Ethan, a bored, clock-watching TSA agent who picks today of all days to try and please his airline operations wife (Carson) by stepping up and asking for more authority from his boss (Dean Norris).

But since it’s Christmas Eve, the “busiest travel day of the year,” that boss will let the never-makes-an-effort lump swap spots with a pal (Sinqua Walls) and “run the line,” monitoring the X-ray screen as passengers let him see through their luggage on their way in.

That would have to be the day when a mysterious blackmailer leaves an ear bud for Ethan, texts him to “put it in” and starts giving orders and making direct, pointed threats to Ethan and Nora if the TSA gatekeeper doesn’t do as he’s told.

“There’s people in control, and people who listen,” our venomous villain says. Ethan is the latter, and if he listens, Nora won’t die, he himself probably won’t die and something and someone that shouldn’t be on that particular plane will get through.

Our anonymous talker, working with the “Watcher” (Theo Rossi), has tapped into the airport’s security cams and into Ethan’s life and is manipulating his every move. He “reads” the 30 year-old, tossing in insulting asides about “your generation” while he’s at it. He’s constantly reminding the kid who failed his one shot at the police academy of his shortcomings, his laziness and his dilemma.

And then Ethan figures out who this all-knowing, every-angle-played villain is, a “traveler” in generic dark clothes and black baseball cap. His many efforts to slip a phone or smart watch text by this guy (Bateman) might have failed. But now, at least, Ethan knows who he is dealing with and the “reading” isn’t a one-way street.

Collet-Serra, working from a somewhat generic, credulity-straining T.J. Fixman script, shoots and cuts Ethan and the viewer into this fix, and then leads us through a few harrowing worst-choice dilemmas and even laughable “escapes” as “You TSA guys are a joke” scrambles to save his partner, his skin and maybe a jetliner full of passengers from the fate this conspiracy has cooked up for them.

Danielle Deadwyler ably plays a cop working her way from an underworld murder at a Christmas tree selling greenhouse towards LAX.

There’s always one co-worker in movies like this who announces to the hero that he’s “up to something” and that they’re “going to find out what.”

And the reason the phrase “movies like this” suits is that we’ve seen versions of this very sort of “blackmailed into doing something awful” thriller before. Even a couple directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Both of them (“The Commuter,” “Non-Stop”) starred Liam Neeson.

“Carry-On” is on a par with those films, no better and not much worse, just a new variation on a theme. The “work the problem” puzzle-solving is a little lazier, more far-fetched in the latter acts. But the impact is the same.

This thriller begins at a crawl and finishes with a sprint. The foreshadowing is obvious even if the next twist rarely is. The early bargaining, “All you have to do is do nothing,” is more sinister than the sometimes satisfying mayhem to come.

And Bateman’s cool-headed, calculating creep just keeps talking and insulting, an “OK, boomer” Gen Xer asking for comeuppance from Gen Z. But as tough-talking Bateman is no Neeson when it comes to “getting physical” over 50, we shouldn’t get our hopes up that Mr. Snide Insults can back up all that talk when it’s go time.

Rating: PG-13, violence, profanity

Cast: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler, Sinqua Walls, Theo Rossi and Dean Norris

Credits: Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, scripted by T.J Fixman. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:59