Red One: A Review (Review #1895)

 

RED ONE

Somewhere lurking abouts Red One is the germ of an idea: what if Santa Claus was unable to ride out on Christmas Eve? However, Red One is lost in its own world, unable to fully go the family route or the more action route, ending up nowhere. 

Santa Claus, code name Red One (J.K. Simmons) continues spreading cheer and love the world over. Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), his head of security is tired after centuries of seeing how bitter adults are getting. Kris Kringle, for his part, keeps the faith and hopes that Callum will go on one more sleigh ride before formally retiring from ELF (Enforcement, Logistics and Fortifications). However, Santa has been abducted! Who is behind this nefarious plot two days away from Christmas Eve?

Eventually, we find that it is Gryla the Christmas Witch (Kiernan Shipka), who has her own evil plans to enact justice on all those on the Naughty List, everyone from killers to jaywalkers as she puts it. Unwittingly helping her is The Wolf, the mysterious hacker who can find anyone and anything. The Wolf is really Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans), who is a Level 4 Naughty Lister, the worst of the worst. Cynical, slovenly, selfish, greedy and a disengaged father to Dylan (Wesley Kimmell), he is now the only person who can find Santa. 

Forced to join the thoroughly stern Callum, he and Jack go from the sunny shores of Aruba to the hidden world of Santa's erstwhile brother, Krampus (Kristopher Hivju) to rescue the Claus and save Christmas. However, there are more twists and turns in finding Jolly Old St. Nick. Will Christmas be saved? Will Gryla enact her own perverse sense of justice on humanity?

The budget for Red One is calculated at about $250 million, and I think I can spot three areas where that money went to. You have the various special effects shots of the North Pole and the Snowmen attacking Callum, Jack and Gryla's middleman Ted (Nick Kroll) in Aruba. You have the elaborate makeup work of Krampus and his dark court. You have the decision to film this in IMAX.

You also, apart from the makeup, really have no reason to rush out to see Red One. At over two hours, it is a punishing length for a story that wanders hither and yon, with no direction. You could have cut the opening section where young Jack reveals the truth about where the gifts come from. The entire Krampus section had little payoff. Same with the Aruba section. It is as if screenwriter Chris Morgan opted to put in a lot but not bother with worldbuilding. 

Take for example Gryla the Christmas Witch. Who is she really? She tells us her plan to punish all those on the naughty list but capturing them in snow globes seems a rather dumb idea. For all the Sturm und Drang about keeping Ted safe from the snowmen because he is the only one who can lead them to his secret employer, he ends up frozen and then promptly forgotten. I think locking Dylan up in a snow globe next to his father seems a tad harsh. 

I think Red One wants to have it both ways: be an action film and be almost a heartwarming Yuletide treat. It is interesting that Jack mentions that Dylan has a great stepfather, but we never see said great stepfather. For someone who is meant to be something of a lone wolf, one is puzzled on why he even bothers recognizing Dylan as his. It is a way to get Jack to reform, I suppose. It just was not a good way. Did Jack really have to literally steal candy from a baby to show us what a horrible person he is?

I was puzzled not so much by why Santa Claus was grabbed but why ELF thought he was in mortal danger. Yes, I can see why he would need tight security in Philadelphia, where Santa goes to the mall to get recharged. Yet, when Callum barks out that there is a "Code Green", I thought, "has there been a previous attempt on Santa's life?". Perhaps if, say, Santa had been receiving threatening messages or Gryla had hacked the North Pole and issued threats, then we might have had something. As it is, however, Red One was not building up to anything.

To be fair, there were a few moments that I thought were mildly clever. At one point in Aruba, someone calls out that Ted can't get iced, though the pun escaped the audience. Hearing Ted call Callum and Jack the "Magic Mike Christmas Brigade" did make me smile, if only for the sheer idiocy of it all. There was just something sadly predictable in Red One, lazy almost. When they got to Aruba, the people next to me started singing, "Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take you", the opening lines to the Beach Boys' Kokomo. When Callum tells Jack that he is one day short of retirement after 542 years of service, the person next to me whispered, "Always".

Johnson and Evans are slumming through Red One, looking almost disinterested in what is going on. Evans could not make Jack into anything: neither charming rogue nor cynical criminal. I get that Johnson's Callum was meant to be the straight man in how serious he was meant to be. It just did not play well against Evans' more lackadaisical manner. Simmons could have made for a great Santa, even showing off his buff arms. However, for most of Red One, his performance consisted of looking zonked out, so it must have been nice to be paid to look asleep. Maybe he was asleep, who is to say? Bonnie Hunt was sadly underused as Partridge, which I presume is Mrs. Claus' first name or like "Red One", her code name. Lucy Liu just popped in and out, potentially setting up a cinematic universe with the MORA: Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority. 

Red One is not good. It may be too adult for young kids and despite its claims not kid enough for adults. It is not charming. It is not funny. It is not exciting. It is just there. Santa Claus may hate macaroons, but I think he would find Red One more distasteful. 

DECISION: D+