T’is the season to be jolly, full-la-la-la… If you are anything like me, you’re a joyous bag of Christmas spirit and not someone who acts like Scrooge. What could possibly cheer me up? How about Red One, a new Christmas movie.
Red One had a brief release in the cinema, where it bombed. It made a meagre $166 million in the box office, it’s budget? A reported $350 million! The good thing is, you can see all of that money on the screen, mostly in Johnson’s ego.
Red One stars Dwayne Johnson (not The Rock, I’ll come back to that), Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, J. K. Simmons, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju and Kiernan Shipka. Jake Kasdan directs with Chris Morgan and Hiram Garcia writing.
The Story
The official story is:
After Santa Claus is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security must team up with a notorious hacker in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.
We meet Jack O’Malley (later played by Evans) as a kid. He found the presents at Christmas and told the other kids. He says he can find anything, another kid jokes that he can’t find his dad. This sets a tone, telling jokes about a kid’s missing parents.
As Jack grows up, he finds things and people for whomever is paying him. He breaks into a lab and plants a tracker in search of a secret weapon over the Arctic. The secret weapon is Santa returning to his hidden base of operations at the North Pole.
Good ‘ol St Nick (Simmons) has been visiting the kids on the ground floor. He likes to stay in touch with them, so he knows what to bring them for Christmas. His security detail is run by Cal (Johnson), who always makes sure that Nick is safe.
Jack finds Nick’s sleigh and sells the information to his contact. A covert team is sent to the North Pole to kidnap Santa. This all happens on Cal’s watch, so he has to get him back, and it’s only a day before Christmas!
Zoe (Liu) heads the M.O.R.A., the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority, which finds Jack and makes him assist Cal to find Red One.
The story isn’t bad, it’s kind of fun, but the execution is bad.
The Cast
I remember the days of The Rock, fighting with Mankind, taking on Steven Austin in the WWF. They were great days. I loved how Rock never took himself too seriously. There is now a big difference between The Rock and Dwayne Johnson.
One of the early on-screen roles that The Rock did was Be Cool, where he played a gay bodyguard. He was so funny in this, being camp, being silly, and doing a single-man monologue from Bring It On. I liked that Rock, he was good fun.
Johnson on the other hand is now trying to be an actual actor. I say that very loosely, because it’s not like he’s going to win any Oscars in the near future. But herein lies the problem in Red One, Johnson just doesn’t work in this role.
Evans is having fun, Simmons is having fun, they have silly characters, and they are leaning into it. Johnson, however, seems to be taking the role seriously which puts the tone of the movie all over the place.
If The Rock was in Red One, it might have been better, but with Johnson in there, it just doesn’t work. He needed to lean into the camp a little more like Evans was, and it might have been more fun.
The Overall Tone
This, again, was a major issue for Red One. It’s a Christmas movie, but it’s not Home Alone, A Christmas Story or even Die Hard. The tone of these movies is fun, jolly, and set against the Christmas spirit. Red One has none of that.
All of the colors are muted, the saturation is toned down and everything is taken seriously. Are there jokes? Yes, but they are very usually cheesy one-liners or the occasional cheeky moment, by everyone but Johnson.
Imagine Home Alone but set in The Winter Solider universe. It just wouldn’t work, the comedy, the slapstick, the fact of a little boy taking on two criminals. Home Alone works because it’s silly and it leans into it. Red One doesn’t work, because it doesn’t lean into how silly the story is.
A different director, with a better script and The Rock, Red One might have been an entertaining movie. Putting Johnson in it means it wasn’t that good, and also very expensive. I’m sure I read somewhere that one of Johnson’s up-and-coming movies will pay him $50 million. He’s nowhere near worth it!
Overall
I can’t lie, I did like the story and I found myself giggling at Red One, but it’s not a Christmas Classic by any stretch of the imagination. You might have fun with it if you have kids, but it’s not going on the ‘a movie we need to see at Christmas’ list.
The other thing that annoyed me about Red One was the budget. I have no idea where the $350 million went, but it’s not on the bright colors or exotic locations. I think we’ve said it before, but it seems like Hollywood is a money laundering racket. Red One is Exhibit A, your honor.
Red One is worth a single watch, it’s not completely terrible, but it’s just not a real Christmas Movie. It’s now streaming online.
