Everyone knows that Santa Claus is real, right?
Hollywood has been cranking out movies with that premise dating back to Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Deep in our hearts we want to believe, despite the growing, grade school skepticism that sprouts from common sense issues like: “How could Santa possibly visit every house on the planet in just one night?” and “How could he ever fit down the narrowest of chimneys with that huge bag stuffed with toys?”
Red One tackles these questions head on. In the movie, Santa Claus (a.k.a. Nick, played by J.K. Simmons) is a Santa for the 21st century—a high tech, physically fit Santa with a vast toy-making facility housed in an enormous protective glass bubble on the North Pole. He’s a cool dude, and he is an important dude, which is why the kidnapping of “Red One” (his code name) is such a big deal.
As you could gather by the movie trailers, Red One is a Holiday spy flick for kids with maniacal evil villains, intent on destroying Christmas as we know it. There are wild chases, kung fu fighting sequences and wonderous, imaginary gadgets.
Chris Evans plays Jack O’Malley, mastermind bad guy turned good guy who teams up with Dwayne Johnson’s character (Callum Drift) to find Santa and save the world. Callum Drift is Santa’s personal bodyguard on the verge of retirement following hundreds of years of faithful service.
Their efforts are aided by Zoe (Lucy Liu) who is the head of a secret organization whose mission is to protect mythical characters like Santa. What follows is a globe-hopping chase in the tradition of the 007 movie franchise. There is an element of magic here including Callum Drift’s power to change the size of himself and other small objects like Matchbox-sized vehicles.
It’s a variation on Ant-Man’s ability to instantly change size which is a handy trick when one is outnumbered in a fist fight. Other magical plot devices include an evil witch and her shape-shifting minions.
Red One gets off to a pretty fun start but then quickly loses momentum, decelerating from brisk action sequences to long exchanges of dialog.
Admittedly, it’s tough to keep a story moving along when the main character is unconscious, trapped in an oversized glass snow globe. The writers try to compensate with the addition of another character, namely Krampus, Santa’s scary, estranged brother. Even that side story quickly runs its course.
With every holiday season comes Hollywood’s ongoing attempt to create an updated holiday movie classic. A Christmas Story (1983) is the benchmark. As they say in showbusiness, that movie has been a hard act to follow.
While Red One showcases some A-List talent, it’s clear that the budget went to paying the stars at the expense of the writers. Dwayne Johnsson reportedly received a record breaking $50 million salary for the movie even though he was rumored to have occasionally been 8-hours late on set. It’s things like that that drive up the cost of movies like Red One to the $250 million dollar mark.
Red One is splashy, but not necessarily entertaining. At a glance, it appears to have been targeted to younger audiences though the inclusion of adult language (with words like “Dickhead”) might make it inappropriate for kids.
To its credit, at the end of the final reel, Red One does solve the mysteries of how Santa does what he does each and every Christmas eve. It’s pretty hilarious. But you have to wade through two hours of the move to get there.
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