“Red One” Review

I’m not opposed to the idea of Red One posing as a Fast & Furious Christmas special. In fact, I was hoping for that level of momentum to carry this film’s absurd Santa-saving plot fast enough that I’d never grow tired with the familiar story about saving Christmas. But this film is not fast, nor is it furious. It’s an adventure that spends so much time in the slow lane, wasting time explaining the operations of mythical authorities.

A film like this doesn’t need to take it easy when introducing Dwayne Johnson as the tough bodyguard Callum Drift. His client is Santa Claus, played with muscle and decent charm by J. K. Simmons. When Santa is kidnapped by the evil Icelandic monster Grýla (Kiernan Shipka), Callum is forced to work with the troublesome hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), responsible for hacking the systems that allowed Santa to be captured. Jack gets the crash course in Santa being real and that one of his agents is a polar bear, voiced by Reinaldo Faberlle. The initial sight of the bear by Jack might generate the same fright in the audience if we hadn’t already been introduced to this character early in the story, as divulged by Lucy Liu in a thankless role as an operative of M.O.R.A (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority).

The best I can say about a film like this is that it takes itself earnestly with its absurd premise, rarely slowing down to crack obvious jokes. The way that Johnson divulges the nature of his work and the operations of Santa with the stern nature of a serious cop is fairly funny. The problem is he has to do a lot of that in a film that launches us into a fantastical world and then has to slow down to explain all of its mechanics to Jack. This framing not only robs the film moments of a buddy dynamic but also makes Jack’s redemption arc with his kid feel as tacked on as a last-minute gift.

The film needed more of its speed to embrace its weirdness. It makes sense why one of the clips revealed in the marketing is where Callum uses his magical tech to transform a toy car into a fully functioning vehicle. Jack is impressed and before he can question the mechanics, Callum quickly goes over what the magic can and cannot do before entering the car. Why couldn’t the film have more of that? I don’t really care how Santa’s energy can be siphoned or how toy stores act as portals for Santa’s helpers. In this scenario, I care how well Johnson and Evans play off each other in such escapades as fighting the evil Krampus (Kristofer Hivju) in his lair. But how much comradery can they have when they’re given bland action dialogue that doesn’t add much to their characters? The lack of more defined characters make these two figures feel like standard roles for Johnson and Evan, coming right off the assembly line of made-to-order movies.

Red One sadly wastes the potential it had to be a redefining Christmas adventure. It has some visual flair and a solid cast, but it becomes so drenched in its straight-faced absurdity that it becomes more routine than rousing. It’s a better Christmas movie when compared to the years of family-oriented fluff that pops up around this time of year, but the admiration is more for the shiny wrapping paper than anything inside its promising presentation.