‘Red One’: Review

Dir: Jake Kasdan. US. 2024. 122mins 

Santa Claus has been kidnapped, and the only people who can save him are Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. In the fun but strained Red One, director Jake Kasdan serves up an effects-heavy action comedy with a disarming sweetness that is undone by an overly complicated plot and some tired blockbuster conventions. That said, Johnson lends the picture some real heart as an elite bodyguard assigned to protect Father Christmas who has lost his yuletide spirit – not because of the children of the world but because of the increasingly callous adults out there.

The story’s world-building offers enough novelty to what can otherwise be a predictable package

Set to open November 6 in the UK and November 15 in the States, Red One will eventually stream on Prime Video where it could become a holiday staple. The mixture of laughs, sentiment and action should satisfy undemanding families, and the story’s world-building offers enough novelty to what can otherwise be a predictable package. Johnson and Evans’ star power, alongside a supporting cast that includes Lucy Liu and J.K. Simmons, might make this a solid theatrical performer – despite the competition posed by Paddington In Peru.

Callum (Johnson) is the commander of E.L.F., a top-notch security team that safeguards Santa Claus (Simmons) at the North Pole. But with just a couple of days until Christmas Eve, Santa is captured by soldiers working with the wicked Christmas witch Gryla (Kiernan Shipka), who wants to punish those on Santa’s naughty list. Desperate to rescue Santa, Callum finds Jack (Evans), a cynical freelance tracker who unknowingly helped Gryla discover the weak spot in the North Pole’s defences. Together, Callum and Jack will search for Santa, as Jack learns just how elaborate Old St. Nick’s operation really is.

With a screenplay from Chris Morgan, who has worked on several of the Fast & Furious films, Red One is yet another updating of the Santa Claus legend, imagining his North Pole headquarters as a high-tech mission control equipped with a formidable commando force that even includes a talking polar bear. The film boasts some clever twists on Father Christmas’ iconography — for one thing, Simmons’ Santa Claus is not chubby but, rather, jacked — and, in the early going, the picture conveys the childlike wonder of the season, which the loyal Callum is no longer feeling. He has decided to resign his position after hundreds of years, although his old friend Santa convinces him to share one last Christmas Eve with him before stepping down.

Kasdan, who last directed the recent Jumanji films, which also starred Johnson, has demonstrated an ability to craft all-ages entertainment full of the expected high-octane extravaganza while also making room for intimate, emotional moments. He attempts something similar with Red One. Callum’s fear that the world has forgotten how to be good — countered by Santa’s insistence that the true meaning of Christmas is more important than ever — gives the film a familiar but resonant yuletide theme. 

Unfortunately, once the wisecracking, self-absorbed Jack enters the picture, it becomes easy to guess exactly where the story is going. Jack never believed in Santa as a boy — and as an adult, he is drowning in debt to loan sharks and is a deadbeat dad to his young son Dylan (Wesley Kimmel) — which means that, conveniently, he is the polar opposite of the selfless Callum. But the characters’ odd-couple pairing is only infrequently amusing, and Evans’ smirking performance fails to make Jack a lovable (and redeemable) jerk.

In a leading-man career that has now lasted more than 20 years, Johnson has often tried to pair muscular action and an understated sense of humour, with uneven results. But in Red One, he has his best starring role in years, a resourceful warrior whose tough-guy bravado belies his deep love for humanity. Although it’s not Callum’s principal mission, he will teach Jack about the need to believe in people’s basic decency — and, along the way, may well regain his own affection for Christmas, too.

A simpler adventure might have amplified that feel-good message, but Red One, which reportedly cost $250 million, lumbers over its two-hour runtime. The story introduces other fantastical organisations — Liu plays the director of a group that monitors magical figures — and even checks in on Santa’s coldhearted brother Krampus (Kristofer Hivju). The slathered-on CGI is often unsightly, and Shipka rarely gets a moment to shine. Still, Simmons makes for an endearing, unironic Santa whose passion for his job has never wavered. At its best, Red One embodies that lightness, balancing it with the overwhelming dictates of a big-budget spectacle — but not nearly often enough.