‘Red One’ Review
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, J.K. Simmons | Written by Chris Morgan, Hiram Garcia | Directed by Jake Kasdan
Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans headline Christmas action comedy Red One, that’s apparently intended to be the first of a festive franchise. Unfortunately, it’s less a case of “Ho, ho, ho!” and more a case of “No, no, no!”
Evans plays longtime Santa sceptic Jack O’Malley, a “level four naughty lister” who has ended up as a professional thief. When Jack is hired to steal some secret co-ordinates, his actions result in Santa (J.K. Simmons) getting kidnapped, so he teams up with Santa’s beefy head of security, Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), to reluctantly save Christmas.
The script is the textbook definition of half-baked. It tosses around soppy Christmas clichés like there’s no tomorrow and its attempts at world-building (in terms of Santa’s whole operation) are so poorly thought through that it’s actually embarrassing to watch. To make matters worse, there’s no sense of stakes or consequences, beyond, “Oh no, kids won’t get their presents.” Similarly, a big deal is repeatedly made about the naughty list and a concurrent punishment, but the film never commits itself to what that might actually entail.
The problems don’t stop there. The gags are woefully unfunny and there’s no sense of visual invention, even with potentially promising plot devices like Callum being able to bring toys to life, or to shrink and grow both himself and other things on demand.
The performances aren’t much better. Pretty much everyone involved looks like they know full well what a terrible movie this is, and they’re determined to get it over with as quickly as possible. Johnson, in particular, does the bare minimum – he doesn’t even grant the film the use of his trademark eyebrow raise. In fairness, the casting director deserves a little credit for signing up J.K. Simmons to play Santa, as he makes a decent Father Christmas, and Kiernan Shipka is at least enjoying herself as Gryla, the all-powerful sorceress behind the Santa kidnap plot. But the less said about the likes of Lucy Liu – utterly wasted as Callum’s boss, Zoe – the better.
As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, Red One looks atrocious throughout. Far from bringing Christmas cheer and a spot of colour, it’s consistently murky and drab, even in daylight scenes. The CGI work is very poor as well, and has a real air of “Will this do?” to it.
Quite apart from anything else, Red One deserves a severe rap on the knuckles for including a lengthy sequence involving a slapping game, in which contestants have to slap each other’s faces as hard as they can. Woe betide the filmmakers if impressionable young children decide to play that with their siblings at home. Or worse, it turns into a TikTok trend or something.
In short, Red One is comfortably one of the worst films of the year, the sort of film that makes you feel a little bit sorry for everyone involved. On the plus side, its franchise hopes are unlikely to be realised, unless there’s a job lot of Christmas Miracles floating about.
* 1/5
Red One is in cinemas now.
