Sometimes a movie will come out that doesn’t feel like its own thing and is instead an amalgam of multiple ideas much like Frankenstein’s monster. Bits and pieces of it work together just fine, but then parts jump out like they were hobbled to it from old, dead films that completely mystify as to the point of the current creation. Red One is a perfect example of this in that it can’t decide if it wants to be for kids or adults, and by refusing to choose a direction ends up being for neither.
Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) has been the head of the Enforcement Logistics and Fortification (ELF) for hundreds of years and has always excelled at his one main job: protecting Santa Claus (J. K. Simmons). As time has passed though, he has begun to lose sight of the spirit of Christmas due to the overwhelming number of humans who choose to be on the naughty list and has finally chosen to retire. Before he can, the unimaginable happens, and Santa is kidnapped on the Eve of Christmas Eve. Callum discovers that hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) provided intel to the group responsible for the atrocious action. Instead of meting out justice, he must reluctantly partner with Jack since he also happens to be the best tracker in the world. With Santa’s ride only hours away, the two must work together to rescue St. Nick or risk losing Christmas forever.
As silly as this sounds on paper, I was excited for it. Directed by Jake Kasdan who did the highly-enjoyable Jumanji movies a few years back, it seemed playful and fun and not your stereotypical Christmas film. And it definitely starts out this way! They have done a fantastic job of world building that feels like a mix between Harry Potter and Men in Black, and it all works swimmingly at first. In fact, it could have been fun to see more of what takes place in this strange universe that coexists with ours. Unfortunately, that sense of magic quickly vanishes.
I couldn’t have been more disappointed in Chris Evans. He’s always been a favorite of mine and has shown he can be more than Captain America if given the right material. He was fantastic in Gifted. His only purpose here is to be the comedic foil for Johnson’s straight man, and most of the jokes fall flat. We won’t even bring up the complete lack of chemistry between the two.
What’s even stranger is that it’s billed as a kids’ holiday movie but includes so much innuendo and language at times that it feels it was meant for a much more mature audience. I’m a huge proponent of films that cater to audiences of all ages by throwing in jokes or topics that the kids won’t recognize but adults will get a chuckle out of, but nothing here is that intelligent. It’s like they wanted to make an R-rated movie and then got told they couldn’t so had to effectively neuter it to get the rating the studio wanted, or vice versa. Whatever happened, it would have been better off had they stayed in their lane and not tried to pander to everyone at once because it just left us with a mess.
This easily stands as one of my most disappointing movies of the year. It had a wonderful premise that it slightly lives up to, but the whole thing reeks of wasted potential. I love the world that has been created, and the stories that could be told in it should be interesting, but after this, I just don’t want to be a part of it anymore. If you’re on Santa’s Naughty List, you won’t get coal in your stocking on Christmas. You’ll be forced to watch this instead.