Red One

I love Christmas movies, and I’m always excited when the Christmas season starts and I can
rewatch favorites like Will Ferrel’s Buddy the Elf, Albert Finney’s heartwarming take on Scrooge,
and of course Ralphie’s quest for a Red Rider BB gun. I love seeking out fresh and interesting
yuletide stories like the High School Musical meets zombie outbreak film Anna and the
Apocalypse, and I’ll even check out awful films like Santa Jaws, when a boy wishes to be alone
at Christmas and it backfires when a shark with a Santa hat on its dorsal fin is manifested and
eats his entire family. If it’s Christmas adjacent, I’ll likely give it a chance.

There has been a lot of talk online about the troubled production of Dwayne “The Rock”
Johnson’s latest film, and the trailers did nothing to excite me, but I went into Red One just
wanting to be entertained. I liked Jake Kasdan’s remake of Jumanji, even if the sequel wasn’t as
clever or fun and hoped that the pairing of Johnson and Chris Evans with a tremendously in
shape J.K. Simmons playing Santa Clause would be enough to lift the film above the bad CGI
snowmen shown in the trailer. It was a low bar, and Red One didn’t clear it.

The film is about Santa Claus being kidnapped from the North Pole, and his paramilitary
security group MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority,) with their agents and
paratroopers commanded by Callum Drift (Johnson) who are called in to assist when Santa is
kidnapped 24 hours out from Christmas Eve. Callum eventually has to team up with Jack “The
Wolf” O’Malley (Chris Evans), a notorious figure on the dark web, who unknowingly helped
reveal the location of Santa’s workshop to his kidnappers. One paper, the cast is stacked with
talent like Johnson, Evans, J.K. Simmons playing a jacked-up Santa, Lucy Liu as head of safety at
the North Pole, Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. Claus, and Kiernan Shipka as a Christmas witch.

Unfortunately, none of that star power is allowed to burn very brightly in this film. Johnson
basically sleepwalks through the film, and doesn’t show any of his humor, charisma, or charm
that he brings to his wrestling matches, and several of his better movies. He’s here to collect a
paycheck and there is zero chemistry with Chris Evans. At least Evans is trying to bring humor
and heart to the film, but he’s so limited with the lackluster script, he was never going to
succeed. The buddy comedy with the “I’m one day away from retirement” schtick has been
played out, and falls incredibly flat here.

The effects are on par with the falling babies in microwaves from The Flash and the green
screen background effects of Ant Man: Quantum Mania for worst CGI in the modern era. The
practical makeup effects like Krampus are actually quite good, but then moments when Callum
uses a device to shrink and resize himself during fights, the evil snow henchmen, the boss battle
at the end are just painful to watch and the film gets swallowed up in CGI creatures battling
each other and removes any stakes or tension that might have been.

I am not sure who the audience for this movie is, since it’s stylized violence, bikini clad women,
multiple crotch injuries, and vulgarities will be too much for the younger viewers, and the teens
and adults won’t enjoy the muddy effects and the story that centers on the belief in Santa
Claus. A rewrite to remove the Aruba side quest, remove some of the swearing, add in more heart, and a little more magic and the film might have been really entertaining. Instead it
shoots to be something for everyone and doesn’t really please anyone. It’s not the worst movie
of the year, but it’s not going into a regular Christmas movie rotation. You’re certainly not going
to see if 24 hours straight on TBS next December. It’s not a lump of coal, but it’s certainly not a
gift I want to open again.

Grade: C-