Red One Review
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Chris Evans team up together to save Christmas when Santa is kidnapped by mysterious forces. The film has some great ideas behind it, with both the hyper-realistic and the fantasy meshing together surprisingly well but falls apart with its execution. ‘Red One’ is no more than a star vehicle for an uncharismatic version of The Rock, squashing out any room for the film to focus on comedy, action, or anything else. It pays lip service to the typical messages that Christmas films tell but is largely devoid of substance.
Looking at the film from a conceptual level, the idea of turning Christmas into a military-style operation, with the world’s governments all helping Santa to get about and deliver presents to the millions of children across the world, is very cool. It makes sense that in order for Santa to succeed that there would have to be a high level of military planning to it, and that there would be the different divisions, call signs and so on.
Another way this film operates conceptually is taking the many stories, myths, legends, and more that have developed over the centuries about the festival. Saint Nicholas from Turkey, the Americanisation of his name to Santa, the German Krampus, and the Icelandic Christmas witch Gryla. It’s a true melting pot, not just of different fantasy ideas but of the military style and the fantasy.
The only thing is the film doesn’t do a lot with this, as it doesn’t commit to a genre or tone that would make the audience chuckle or cry, or feel a lot of anything else. There is some humour as there are a few scattered one-liners and one off scenes – that do admittedly raise a chuckle – it’s not aiming to cause a huge amount of laughter. Which is fine, many films that aren’t comedies are good, but in this film’s case, it hurts it, as its non-committal is detrimental to the entire experience.
The action in the film isn’t something that audiences should run out to see. It doesn’t evoke the energy or sense of pace that truly great films do, audiences just go through the motions. The scenes are largely just about The Rock and Chris Evans punching CGI nothingness, and lack a sense of momentum. This is exemplified in the final fight, where the two main characters face down a slow moving troll witch, and it’s not got any stakes to it. There’s no emotional investment The best action scene, where The Rock has to chase down a snowspeeder, does have that sense of fast paced movement, dynamism and progression, with The Rock moving over the pipes, and the walls redirecting the enemy, to The Rock getting his own speeder and causing an avalanche. It’s something the rest of the film can’t keep up with.
The film makes a jab at modern society, with the film explaning more and more people are being put on the naughty list, along with the horrible nature of adults, whether it’s enttiled streamers or Karens looking for their essential oils. The Rock’s character is even loosing hope that more adults are naughty, and is paired with likely the most naughty adult of them all. There’s a statement to say here, and while it’s far above a Christmas flick to push a grand societal message, something more could and should have been done with this, as it would have helped separate the film from what audiences normally see.
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is what wil likely make or break the film for most audiences, and unfortunately, in this case, it’s not looking good. He’s not doing anything new or interesting, and he’s not able to exert any charisma in this role. There’s no charm to it, or anything. Most of this also comes down to his choice of character, being the straight-faced serious guy means that cool isn’t supposed to be in the character’s wheelhouse, but a lot of the time this just results in The Rock showing no character, and just coming off as The Rock in a red and green costume. It’s a miscast unfortunately.
Chris Evans fares better, simply because he is by far and away a superior actor, being able to be the wise-cracker, who cares about no one, but can give a performance complex enough so that audiences can see that his Lone Wolf personality is just a mask, hiding the pain of abandoning his son. His character does take a bit of a random turn midway through the film, deciding to save The Rock despite nothing happening previously to indicate that kind of personal growth. That’s the film’s writers realising that the man must have an arc before the end of the film, but not fully setting it up.
While ‘Red One’ has a festive cover on it, and a cool world in which it successfully merges both hyper serious and fantasy, it just can’t fill it with anything interesting. The action mostly feels static and generic, the lack of commitment to humor takes the fun out of proceedings, and The Rock’s poor choice and execution of his role is what puts the final nail in the coffin for ‘Red One. Unfortunately, Chris Evans can’t save it.
