Red One Review

Every holiday season, there’s a movie that tries to blend festive cheer with bold reimaginings, but Red One feels more like a lump of coal than a Christmas miracle. Directed by Jake Kasdan and boasting a star-studded cast, this ambitious, $250 million action-comedy Christmas film sets out to modernize holiday folklore but ends up delivering a tonally confused and narratively hollow experience.

The story follows Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), Santa’s weary bodyguard, and Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), a hacker roped into saving Santa (J.K. Simmons) from a mythological villain, Grýla (Kiernan Shipka). While the premise — Santa kidnapped 24 hours before Christmas Eve — could have made for a gripping, unique adventure, the execution is weighed down by predictable twists, a lackluster script, and an identity crisis. Is it an action-comedy, a fantasy epic, or a buddy-cop film with a festive twist? The film never decides, resulting in an experience as disjointed as untangling last year’s Christmas lights.

One of the film’s major shortcomings is its inability to fully explore its characters. Callum’s crisis of faith and Jack’s estranged relationship with his son are ripe for development, but these arcs feel rushed and unearned. Jack’s father-son conflict is especially mishandled, with minimal build-up and a resolution so contrived it could have been swapped for any generic subplot without altering the story. Johnson and Evans struggle to create the buddy-cop chemistry essential to the film’s success, making their partnership feel hollow and forced. Meanwhile, great talents like Lucy Liu and J.K. Simmons are criminally underutilized. Simmons, as a muscle-bound Santa, offers a glimmer of promise but spends most of the film sidelined, draining any potential magic from his character.

Visually, Red One is a mixed bag. Its attempt to modernize the North Pole with secretive organizations like MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) and sleek, high-tech aesthetics falls flat, feeling more like a parody of Marvel than a charming Christmas setting. The action sequences — another potential highlight — are disappointingly choppy, poorly lit, and burdened with over-the-top CGI that diminishes their impact. Even smaller moments, like a slapstick game of Krampusschlap, feel more engaging than the grand-scale set pieces, which lack the clarity and energy of a proper holiday blockbuster.

Where the film shines, albeit briefly, is in its creative use of mythological figures like Krampus and Grýla. These underrepresented holiday characters add a dash of folklore-inspired intrigue, offering a refreshing twist to the usual Santa-and-elves formula. Grýla, with her Icelandic roots, is a standout villain conceptually, but the script fails to fully capitalize on her rich backstory. These characters are welcome additions, but their potential is buried under the film’s larger issues.

Ultimately, Red One is a frustrating mix of ambition and mediocrity. While it deserves credit for attempting to create a sprawling holiday cinematic universe, it lacks the heart, humor, and cohesion to pull it off. With its bloated runtime, wasted cast, and garish visuals, this film is neither the action-packed Christmas caper it aspires to be nor the feel-good holiday classic audiences crave. Watching it might pass the time on a snowy evening, but don’t expect it to join the ranks of your annual Christmas traditions.