He’s made a list, he’s checked it twice, and now he’s gone missing.
On Christmas Eve, the North Pole is spun into chaos when Santa Claus disappears amidst preparations for his biggest night of the year. Directed by Jumanji’s Jake Kasdan and starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, and J.K. Simmons, Red One is a holiday action flick that aims to accommodate even the Grinch-iest of family members.
Callum Drift (Johnson), a member of Santa Claus’ (Simmons) elite ELF (Enforcement, Logistics and Fortification) security squad and is ready to hang up his hat. Having worked for Saint Nick for hundreds of years, helping him deliver gifts to children across the globe, Drift has started to become disillusioned with the holiday season, seeing only how humans have grown greedier and more selfish. Jack O’Malley (Evans), a sceptic and a miser, has always believed Santa Claus to be a fiction. With the gift of sticky fingers and a healthy measure of pragmatism, O’Malley becomes a black-hat hacker-for-hire, selling his skills to the highest bidder with little remorse.
Prepared to complete one last ride with Santa, Drift’s plans are thrown into disarray when a crew of highly organised mercenaries break through the North Pole’s security and abduct Santa from under their noses. Teaming up with the Mythical Oversight and Restoration Authority (M.O.R.A) director Zoe Harlow (Liu), Callum Drift is forced to work alongside the slippery Jack O’Malley in order to track Santa down and return him to the pole in time for his sleigh ride.
Using O’Malley’s street smarts and Drift’s magical gadgets, the unlikely duo travel across the real and mystical world in order to uncover the secrets of Santa’s abduction. Coming up against the Icelandic Christmas witch Gryla (Shipka) and her Yule Boys, O’Malley’s perception of reality is completely altered, while Drift learns that everyone has the capacity to regain their humanity.
Through Johnson’s Seven Bucks Production company, Red One boasts a huge budget, and it shows. Big name leading cast aside, Red One stacked its supporting roles with famous faces like Bonnie Hunt, Nick Kroll and John Rudnitsky, plus the film is full of flashy visual effects from the elves working at the North Pole, to demons, gremlins, and menacing snowmen; all the bells and whistles don’t same Red One from its shortcomings, but they do make it easier to overlook.
Despite being full of action, twists and turns, Red One often feels like it’s slow to get to where it wants to be; dragging some scenes way out and speeding through others that feel like they should be much longer. It gives the film a very strange pace and a less satisfying payoff than it deserves. Where Red One does land is in its performances of Simmons and Evans, who are just really enjoyable to watch.
Though the biggest star on the docket (physically and monetarily), Johnson just doesn’t possess the magic he did in action-comedy flicks like Jumanji or Central Intelligence. Whether it was complacency or something else, Johnson’s position in the film easily could’ve been filled by another wrestler-turned-actor who would give the role more heart.
Despite having a relatively small part, Simmons is one of the better live action Santa Claus’ in recent memory. The decision to let him remain, lean and be, somewhat surprisingly, kind of buff is a fantastic subversion of the character and it’s clear that Simmons had a lot of fun taking on the role. Evans, seemingly taking on more and more amoral characters after playing Captain America for over a decade, is magnetic as always and receives some of the film’s best quippy one-liners and scene choreography. The pair give the film its emotional core and without them, Red One could have easily become another Dwayne Johnson flex show.
While Red One won’t tug on your heartstrings, it’s still a refreshing holiday film with familiar characters, unique folklore additions, and the same feel-good messaging that families can watch and enjoy together.
Red One is available for streaming now on Prime Video.