Usually, an excellent magical added twist is what we folks fond of the holidays and presents need to create a positive sentiment. Get out the joy and candy canes, wrap the presents, and deliver them to one another. And as per the holiday, don’t stay up late, or Santa won’t come sailing down the chimney!
Then, you find it off-putting when J.K. Simmons takes on the role of the fellow who commands the reindeer and chows down his milk and cookies…to be ridiculously buff and make teenagers look star-struck. It’s okay to re-modernize the vocation and hard work of Santa Claus, but to do so with a blandly sentimental and poorly scripted work makes it all the more forgettable.
Red One follows Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) confiding to Santa that he wants to retire after this Christmas run, as he has become disillusioned with how the world keeps racking up on the Naughty List. But that falls into shambles as renowned hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) unknowingly sells out Santa’s location at the North Pole, which allows a winter witch named Gryla (Kiernan Shipka) to kidnap Santa hours before Christmas Eve. With her systematic ambitions, she intends to siphon out Santa’s magic and imprison every naughty person in magical snow globes. Thus, Callum and Jack begrudgingly must get paired together to find Santa in time to save Christmas.
Typically, there’s a sense of solace to find when your two leads can get some nifty chemistry out of one another. Not here, though. Evans and Johnson pander with different shades of cynicism that don’t mesh well, leading to a boredom-inducing work as these guys trudge along to various locations without bringing fun out of one another. Johnson tries to embody his titular role from Black Adam, only with more slightly juvenile characterization, and Evans thinks a less profane take on Hugh Drysdale from Knives Out will enrapture audiences in this two-hour clunker. If you’re getting more of a pop out of bringing in a Hot Wheels product placement or mentioning Wonder Woman, then it speaks volumes to how wretched the screenplay is laid out.
But maybe the holiday-infested atmosphere will help elevate this feature, right? Well, for a $250 million budgeted feature, you’d be hard-pressed not to think you’re watching a Marvel film of some sort, as the VFX remains damp and choppily executed in the bludgeoning chaos. The smaller set pieces, like when Johnson faces off against Kristofer Hivju’s Krampus, are more exhilarating than bland action blobs tussled every thirty minutes. And O’Malley’s side story regarding a neglectful relationship with his son Dylan (Wesley Kimmel) doesn’t inspire much here, only as a mere reminder of what this story could’ve been.
Red One has all the glamour and star power necessary to make a Christmas holiday tale exciting, but at its bare bones, it cannot even deliver an ounce of entertainment. Much like how J.K. Simmons spends most of the film in a comatose state, so should we.
