Photo Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. From Amazon MGM Studios comes Red One, a festive film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a very tough guy (hard to believe, I know). He plays Callum Drift, head of North Pole security for Saint Nicholas (J.K. Simmons), known as the only Santa Claus. When Santa gets kidnapped right before Christmas Eve, Callum must team up with hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) to save Christmas. This is one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve seen in a long time, and I’m struggling to figure out how to feel about it.
This film features a new take on Santa and his workshop. Rather than a chubby old man with tiny, hard-working elves, Santa is a muscular old man with an even more muscular bodyguard. Callum is part of E.L.F., an organization that supports Santa. These ideas are strange but novel. The world is familiar, yet insane. Everyone in the North Pole is filled with testosterone. The movie could have had a lot of fun with this concept, but it never does. Much of this movie is directed like a serious Jason Bourne-esque action thriller.
While Red One has no shortage of colorful, fantastical creatures to entertain, that’s as far as it gets. This movie feels like a Christmas take on Men In Black, where The Rock’s character serves as a Tommy Lee Jones/Agent K stand-in. Callum has been in the business for centuries and has become jaded by the adults he feels are running Christmas. Johnson’s performance provides the same type of stoicism he provided in Black Adam. He’s stern, seasoned, and experienced with all of the technology that runs the North Pole.
Evans plays a foil to The Rock. Jack is a level-four Naughty Lister caught up in the plot to get Santa back. After a decade of playing the goody-two-shoes Captain America, Evans has seemed to enjoy his return to playing scoundrels like Johnny Storm and Lucas Lee. He’s playing another morally reprehensible character, but at his core is the same characterization they gave to every male protagonist in the ’90s: the absent father who needs to spend more time with his kid around Christmastime. His relationship with his young son Dylan makes him watchable. He is also entering the world and reacting to the absurdity, making him the Will Smith/Agent J of this premise.
Red One wants to pull some mileage from the buddy-cop dynamic between them. Because of their differences, there is some chemistry and banter, but it does not ultimately go anywhere meaningful. They are an acceptable pair, but the film could have benefitted from more scenes showing how well they work together despite their differences. We see this briefly, but there should have been more to make them a memorable team. Beyond their dynamic, the concept and world of Red One are hilarious, but the movie does not have enough funny comedy to make anything out of the setting.
It’s strange to see how seriously the movie takes everything. There are very serious scenes that give us an idea of how disillusioned Callum has become, but we can’t have a serious scene where dialogue starts with lines like, “Santa would always say…” The movie knows it’s a ridiculous film, but it also tries to play too many moments with self-seriousness rather than fully embracing a comedic tone. It wants to be an epic blockbuster, but it’s too absurd. For example, we’ll have these scenes next to scenes where Callum and Jack battle giant evil snowmen, complete with carrot noses.
While watching Red One, you may struggle to believe this is a real movie. One of the most incredulous aspects of this film is its $250 million production budget. It’s genuinely insane that this movie cost that much money because many moments, particularly during the exterior daytime scenes, look flat. Even the action sequences are underwhelming because many of them look like digital characters doing over-the-top actions in a digital environment. You don’t buy into everything that’s happening. The action is acceptable while you watch it, but there isn’t anything that sticks out above anything else you’ve seen from other better movies.
Red One also features familiar character beats and a perfectly disposable villain. Much of Johnson’s dialogue feels like first-draft dialogue. His one-liners have no inventiveness, which is a shame because Christmas action movies have worked well for decades. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and even the recent Violent Night have done wonders for the genre. Instead, this movie borrows heavily from Ant-Man, with Callum’s technology mirroring Ant-Man’s very closely. This film would have worked if it leaned more into the humor, but it doesn’t muster up more than the occasional chuckle, mainly with Evans responding to the insanity surrounding him. Beyond that, Red One won’t be the Christmas classic it hopes to be.
SCORE: 5/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating each other, making it a wash.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our Red One review.
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