The Hollywood Christmas movie is a long and time honoured tradition. Home Alone. A Muppet Christmas Carol. It’s a Wonderful Life. Elf. The Holiday. Over the years, Tinseltown (pun intended) has had a real knack for delivering some true holiday classics. Red One is not one of those movies.
This one follows a long line of Christmas films before it that try to showcase the magic of the holiday by featuring the likes of Santa Claus and his North Pole family. It’s where the main plot of this film begins. After having been taken from his home on Christmas Eve, Santa (J.K. Simmons) is now at the mercy of his captors and it’s up to his right-hand man and chief of security, Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), to save the day along with the help of an unlikely hero, bounty hunter Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans).
Now on the surface, this sounds like a fun, absurd outing for the whole family. The trailer looked entertaining and it had the potential to be a Christmas classic. The actual movie, however, does nothing to fulfill that promise. Instead, what we got feels like yet another overwrought showcase for how Dwayne Johnson can do anything, including saving Christmas.
Behold, yet another big budget action movie that’s all tied up in The Rock’s ego.
Make no mistake, Red One is just another Dwayne Johnson vehicle. Everything else – plot, narrative, structure – is all secondary. (Which should have been obvious from how the movie was made!) While you have a great bunch of actors like Chris Evans, J.K. Simmons, and Lucy Liu coming out to play, there is a very clear sense that all of them were just there to support Johnson’s vision. It’s a disappointing revelation, but isn’t at all surprising considering this is yet another Seven Bucks Production.
While Red One did score the occasional laugh, it really seemed to be confused over what kind of movie if wanted to be. Is it a family Christmas movie or an action adventure? Could it be both? Shouldn’t there be a balance? Alas, otherwise capable director, Jake Kasdan, seemed to lean into the action side of things, which dragged the movie along to an inevitable and unsurprising end. There were just too many “cool” ideas here that should have been left on the cutting room floor.
As for the Christmassy side of things, all of the usual messaging about family values and treasuring those around you are only sporadically mentioned whenever someone remembers that they’re in a holiday movie. It makes all of those emotional beats feel half baked. None of it resonates. Which is a real shame because there was the potential for powerful moments, all of which were undermined by a series of maddening blockbuster action moments designed to remind the audience just how indestructible and powerful Dwayne Johnson is.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. J.K. Simmons is absolutely in his element as Father Christmas, delivering some truly fun, charismatic moments that will make you wish he was coming down your chimney this season. It was so much fun watching him do what he does that you’ll end up wishing this was his movie instead.
And then there’s Chris Evans, who felt like the only person who truly understood the assignment. For once, he got to shed the Captain America persona and lean into the sly, comic aspect of his character. While he was unfortunately let down by a script that prioritized The Rock, his presence does elevate the movie into something better than it has any right to be.
The other smart thing about Red One was the actual world building around Christmas and the North Pole. It may be bold of me to say, but I think this is the first time that the logic behind Santa’s infamous sleigh actually makes sense. Turning the North Pole into a sort of futuristic utopia was also something I hadn’t seen before. Once again, there was potential here. God knows it was a world I wanted to explore.
Red One isn’t great. It isn’t the worst holiday film of all time – that dishonor still belongs to The Star Wars Holiday Special – but if you’re looking for something to bring your kids to and have a whale of a time, if you’re hoping to leave the movie with that joyous, celebratory feeling, you’re better off watching something else.
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