Red One (2024)
Directed by: Jake Kasdan
Premise: Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped hours before Christmas Eve. The head of North Pole security (Dwayne Johnson) and a tracker (Chris Evans) team up to find St. Nick and save Christmas.
What Works: Red One has a silly premise and the filmmakers seem aware of that. A lot of the dialogue comes across deliberately hokey but the lines are delivered in ways that reveal some self-awareness. However, instead of winking at the fourth wall, the cast delver their lines stoically and with conviction. The seriousness is itself funny but also gives Red One an earnest quality; there is a sense, however strained and fleeting, that the filmmakers are trying to create a Christmas story that’s in touch with the better parts of the holiday. Red One reunites a lot of the cast and crew of 2017’s Jumanji and like that movie Red One is fun and shares a similar spirit. The film is well cast with Dwayne Johnson as the upstanding hero, Chris Evans as the antihero with a heart of gold, and J.K. Simmons as the kindly Santa Claus. No one is stretching here but the actors play to their strengths. The banter between Johnson and Evans is likable and fun and their adventures take them on a tour of various mythological holiday creatures.
What Doesn’t: Red One never escapes its own mediocrity. The visuals vary. The practical makeup effects are good, especially the creatures inhabiting Krampus’ domain, but the digital effects are terrible. The computer-generated creatures look like effects from twenty-five years ago and the digital settings have no visual reality. The problems with Red One’s look reflect its artificial and manufactured nature. The plotting and character arcs are immediately familiar. The mechanics of the story are obvious and savvy viewers ought to anticipate everything that’s going to happen. There are no surprises which is antithetical to the appeals of a fantasy story. There is a tension in Red One between the filmmakers’ evident desire to be Christmasy and the film’s imperative as a commercial product. There is a heart to this film but it’s suffocated by the plastic packaging of a Hollywood production. Red One is clearly intended to be the start of a franchise; it hints of a broader world to be explored in later movies and Red One plays as a holiday version of The Avengers. And like a lot of superhero and spectacle films, Red One is plainly militarized. Santa Claus has a military escort and the heroes are part of a fantastic version of the surveillance state. This militarization is at odds with a holiday that supposedly celebrates a season of joy and peace.
Bottom Line: Red One is passable Hollywood filler. It’s not terrible and will hold the attention of family audiences for two hours. But the film is also very obviously a corporate product with uneven effects, canned storytelling, and a compromised holiday spirit.
Episode: #1024 (November 24, 2024)