Red One

When Santa Claus, CODENAME Red One, is kidnapped, it falls on the North Pole’s Head of Security—played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson—to save the day. But he won’t be doing it alone. Joining forces with the slickest bounty hunter around, brought to life by Chris Evans, the duo sets off on a worldwide escapade full of action and Christmas magic.

Red One Review

In 2020, Mel Gibson took a swing at a gritty and violent Santa movie with the R-rated Fatman, an edgy and hard-nosed film that took itself a little too seriously and resulted in reviews camping out in the South Pole. Two years later, David Harbour slipped into the role to deliver sledgehammer-wielding justice as red as his suit in the screwball/Die Hard Christmas mashup Violent Night.

And here we are with Red One, a mildly enjoyable film made for no one. Its language consists of the traditional tirade of tired, grownup action-flick obscenities, while its overall tone, aesthetic, and level of violence are that of a moderately edgy children’s film. Seemingly unwilling to commit to anything, it only scratches the surface of its own fantasy mechanics, introducing fun ideas but ignoring their potential in lieu of an easy joke or plot convenience. This is par for the course, as its one-dimensional plot and perfunctory subplots do the same.

The performances are all fine, with The Rock and Chris Evans eating up most of the screen time. The two charismatic actors have an easy chemistry that, like the rest of the film, never quite reaches escape velocity but hovers in low Earth orbit throughout. Concordantly, the special effects are mostly serviceable, with the giant polar bear and some other early creature effects standing out as dipping their toes into the uncanny valley.

Ultimately, Red One isn’t enough of anything to warrant the watch.

INNAPROPRIATE ELEMENTS In Red One

Language

• The good news is that they cut off the film’s single F-Bomb before it’s finished. The bad news is that I stopped counting the other curse words about halfway in. Some highlights are an @$$hole, a $h!tbag, a bunch of he11$, a slew of d@mn$, at least one GD, and several more mid-level obscenities.
• Oh God and other variations of the Lord’s name being used in vain are prevalent throughout.

Let Me See Your Thong

• A beach scene features several 10s in string bikinis moving through the foreground and background. Several of the background extras also sport banana hammocks.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Dead Beat Dad

• The film features yet another deadbeat dad who has to learn the meaning of Christmas to stop being a scumbag. However, it’s such a poorly developed subplot and takes up such little screen time that I didn’t ding the film hard for its portrayal of dads.

Strong Independent Reindeer

• Female reindeer have replaced Donner, Blitzen, and the rest of the gang. There’s no explanation as to why. In one scene, Santa simply greets them as “ladies,” and the film moves on. Of course, the actual reason is that modern killjoys have tried to promote the case for St. Nick’s sleigh beasts being chicks because real male reindeer wouldn’t have antlers around Christmas time, whereas female reindeer keep theirs year-round. If I can suspend my disbelief far enough to embrace their flying capabilities, I think I can go a bit further and accept that Father Christmas has himself some special Galápagos reindeer.

Santa Declaws

• The film hinges on the fact that Santa never wanted to have a Nice and Naughty List because he’s a hippy-dippy who doesn’t believe in punishing kids. I didn’t penalize the film too much for this because it doesn’t get sanctimonious and never preaches it as a suggested doctrine. Rather, it’s a plot device used to justify the antagonist as well as another character’s addition to the film.

DEI

• There’s definitely some DEI going on in the background and with some tertiary characters. The North Pole is a diverse metropolis of magical human-looking creatures.