Red One

Bringing a sense of adventure to the Christmas movie sub-genre, Red One is a whole heap of family fun for the festive season.

Premise:  When Santa Claus (J. K. Simmons) is kidnapped from the North Pole just before Christmas Eve, head of North Pole security Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) must turn to tracker-for-hire and “level four naughty lister” Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans) to help find Santa and save Christmas.

Review:

First up, I have to declare that I’m a sucker for Christmas movies, even ones that most people may look down their noses at (I re-watch A Bad Moms Christmas almost every year).  That said, I’m not a huge fan of Christmas films that are overly sentimental (films like The Christmas Chronicles and The Christmas Chronicles: Part 2 were okay, but not my favourite), and I prefer Christmas movies that either wholeheartedly embrace the comedy (like 2018’s animated The Grinch) or which take a more unexpected angle (I loved 2022’s R-rated and hilarious Violent Night).

Now I wouldn’t say that Red One is quite up there with Violent Night (which is probably my favourite Christmas movie from the last few years), but unless you’re a Grinch or an Ebeneezer you’ll hopefully be able to take Red One for what it is, which is a fun and (relatively) family friendly Christmas adventure movie, carried by the odd-couple action/comedy pairing of Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans.

“…the action sequences are inventive & kinetic…”

The fact that director Jake Kasdan also directed the two most recent Jumanji movies probably gives you a good idea of the tone to expect from Red One, and this film arguably answers the question “what would you get if you blended Jumanji: The Next Level (which is, after all, a Christmas movie itself) with 48 Hrs”.  Dwayne Johnson plays Callum Drift, the head of Santa’s ELF (“Enforcement Logistics and Fortification”) division, who’s begun to lose his ability to see the best in humans after centuries of year-on-year increases in the number of people on the naughty list.  But when Santa (played by J.K. Simmons, who may give David Harbour a run for his money as the beefiest on-screen Santa) is kidnapped from the North Pole by a mysterious black ops force, the Director of the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (played with a twinkle in her eye by Lucy Liu, making a welcome return to the big screen) orders Callum to work with Chris Evans’ Jack O'Malley.

We learn in the opening sequence that even as a child, Jack didn’t believe in Santa Claus, and has grown up only looking out for himself.  He now works as a tracker-for-hire for underworld types, while barely checking in on his son, Dylan (who lives with his mother, played by Mary Elizabeth Ellis).  You probably don’t have to be clairvoyant to work out that during the course of the film, Callum might recover some of his faith in humanity, and Jack might learn to be less selfish – but none of these Christmas cliches detract at all from the fun.

“…Dwayne Johnson & Chris Evans are an incredibly charismatic pairing…”

Like with the Jumanji films, the action sequences are inventive and kinetic, especially a sequence where Callum uses his ELF technology against some goons, and another scene where the duo are faced with snowmen assassins.  One of the other things I particularly liked about Red One was its attempts to weave in Christmas lore from other cultures outside of the US, so as well as Santa Claus/Saint Nicholas, the plot also incorporates references to Krampus (Kristofer Hivju) and Krampusnacht ("Krampus Night") from Germanic folklore, and Grýla (Kiernan Shipka) from Icelandic mythology.

Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans are an incredibly charismatic pairing, with Johnson playing the by-the-book straight man foil to Evans’ cynical, wisecracking mercenary, who finds himself a fish-out-of-water in the mythological world.  For me, the comedy beats worked just as well here as they did in the recent Jumanji films, and Red One also recaptures some of the spiky banter that made Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw so much fun (which is perhaps not surprising, as this comes from the same writer, Chris Morgan).

“…very entertaining & consistently funny…”

As with any Christmas movie, Red One is a bit cheesy and still has a healthy dose of sentimentality – but that’s all part of being a Christmas movie.  So you could ‘bah humbug’ your way through the whole film … or you could embrace the Christmas spirit and go with the flow, in which case, Red One is a very entertaining and consistently funny Christmas-themed family adventure.