Title:Â Red One
Describe This Movie In One Violent Night Quote:
SCROOGE: Christmas dies tonight.
Brief Plot Synopsis: A Lethal Weapon teams up with Bad Boy to rescue the Last Boy Scout in less than 48 Hours.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film:Â 2 “Christmas in Heavens” out of 5.
Tagline:Â N/A
Better Tagline:Â “Yes, Virginia, there is a another Christmas movie.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: The improbably named Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), head of Santa Claus’s security detail, is literally one (Christmas) day from retirement, having grown disillusioned with the surfeit of naughtiness consuming the world. Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), on the other hand, spoiled Christmas for his friends as a kid. Now he’s a hacker-for-hire who’s inadvertently revealed the North Pole’s location to the forces of Gryla (Kiernan Shipka), the Christmas Witch, who kidnaps St. Nick (J.K. Simmons). Can Cal and Jack *sigh* overcome their differences and *sigh* *sigh* save Christmas?
“Critical” Analysis:Â Have you lost that loving feeling holiday spirit? Are you such an inveterate gambler that you’ve completely alienated your son? Are you a mythical spirit imbued with the supernatural ability to visit billions of homes one night a year and who’s been kidnapped by shadowy forces? What point was I trying to make?
Oh right: Red One, directed by Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, both Jumanjis), figures the way to a cynical nation’s heart is to unite them behind a threat to Santa Claus, the secular face of a holiday that is apparently the unifying factor in a world where followers of Jesus Christ amount to roughly 31 percent of the population.
That’s an admittedly cynical take, so let’s double down. Red One also opens the door to another — *shudder* — cinematic universe by introducing the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (M.O.R.A.), which oversees the actions of an unknown number of supernatural entities. Lucy Liu’s character, M.O.R.A. Director Zoe Harlow, is pretty clearly the jumping off point for a spin-off coming to Paramount+ probably.
Side question: what franchise properties does Amazon MGM have the rights to? Tarzan? Lassie? Borat? Or are they just going to public domain it like the one Easter egg we get in the movie? I won’t spoil it, but the entity in question has quite the (Icha)bod.
Red One does one better on those fake NORAD Santa tracking sites (are those still around?), beefing up the mystery of Santa Claus by merging it with the idea that the U.S. government is somehow capable of not only keeping it a secret, but actively participating in the global deception.
[To be fair, giving Santa a fighter escort on Christmas Eve would still be a better use of our defense budget than the Littoral Combat Ship.]
Kasdan gives both of our unwilling partners redemption arcs: Cal’s despair at the state of humanity and Jack’s bad fathering and general shitbaggery. Crammed in there is a lot of Jumanji-esque (fittingly enough) action sequences and some not great acting.
You might think “not great” refers to Johnson, but he’s actually … not terrible. Is he still playing a bald, taciturn badass? Well, yes, but as the straight man to Evans’s crook, he’s the most enjoyable he’s been since maybe Pain & Gain. Jack, meanwhile, is just Knives Out’s Ransom Drysdale without the smugness.
No, it’s Shipka and Liu who are disappointing, for different reasons. Liu’s Zoe Harlow is relegated to constant handwringing, only getting to unleash in the final minutes. And I guess one of the prerequisites for Gryla to assume human form is that she has to be whacked out on barbiturates. Shipka sleepwalks through Red One so much she may as well be the anesthetized Nick.
The buddy cop aspect is obvious (again, one day from retirement) and, therefore, kind of a slog. Some of the mythology is interesting, though maybe the most far-fetched aspect is how much of a beating Jack takes at the hands of various supernatural baddies. Even given the subject matter, the whole thing looks rather cheap.
So there’s no real reason Red One is on the big screen. Nobody involved here is a stranger to streaming, and neither of the two leads are in what could accurately be called a career peak. Johnson is still smarting from the Black Adam fiasco and as for you, Chris Evans: will you ever reach the heights of your MCU films?
In a time when everything from the live-action Mulan to Coming 2 America to the upcoming Bridget Jones movie ends up streaming, the biggest factor putting Red One on big screens is the Christmas connection. Regimes may fall and hairstyles may change, but parents will always want some relief from family and children over the holidays.
It remains to be seen how many kids want their Xmas movies this plot-heavy, and how many parents want their to be this profane. Given the national mindset these last few weeks, they probably won’t even notice.
Red One is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
