‘Twas the night before Christmas and the magical man in the red suit is nowhere to be found in his North Pole house. Abducted from his highly fortified toymaking compound, the fate of Christmas is now balanced on the shoulders of the head of Santa’s security force and a mercenary hacker who has no qualms about stealing candy from a baby. This sets in motion plenty of holiday themed hijinks in Jake Kasdan’s action comedy Red One.
Turning traditional holiday archetypes on its head, Kasdan’s film is far more interested in the mythology surrounding the jolly fat man than Mr. Claus himself. Santa (J.K. Simmons) is not even overweight in this heightened cinematic world where even evil snowmen have chiseled abs. Looking more like the fit Fashion Santa that became a sensation at Yorkdale mall a few years back, Red One’s version of Kris Kringle can do 500 push-ups in five minutes. After all, one needs to be in peak shape to deliver all those presents and devour all those baked treats in one night.
While his fitness routine would put some top athletes to shame, Santa has not lost sight of bringing joy to those young and old. He still enjoys going to malls, complete with a military escort, and connecting with the kids in person. Santa’s unwavering faith in the power of joy is something that his loyal general Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), the head of his E.L.F (Enforcement Logistics and Fortification) security team, no longer shares.
Seeing the world becoming increasingly more divided and angrier, Drift is ready to hand in his resignation after working alongside Santa for 300 years. Unfortunately, before he can hang up his E.L.F gear, Santa is kidnapped by a powerful winter witch, Gryla (Kiernan Shipka), the former lover of his estrange adoptive brother Krampus (Kristofer Hivju), who wants to erase those on the naughty list once and for all. To find Gryla, Drift must reluctantly team up with the same curmudgeon hacker, Jack O’ Malley (Chris Evans), who unknowingly led the witch to Santa in the first place.
Using the odd couple dynamics between Drift and O’Malley as the basis of this buddy road trip adventure, Kasdan’s film attempts to bring a few new twists to traditional holiday tropes. The E.L.F. team, which range from humans to talking polar bears and beyond, are all shapes and sizes. They and Santa exist in a world where other mythological beings, such as the Headless Horseman, are commonplace and governed by a special agency led by Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu).
Delving deep into the mythological realm, allows Red One to touch on some darker beats creatively while still being a family friendly film. Although Kasdan’s attempts at world building are not as cohesive as his first Jumanji film, there are enough intriguing characters and worlds to keep younger viewers engaged even when some of the action beats feel a little by the numbers.
This is not to say that there is not plenty of action in the film. Whether Drift and O’Malley are battling the aforementioned snowmen on a beach, engaging in a demon slap fight, or going toe-to-toe with Gryla, the film is full of adventurous moments. However, most of the action sequence, while enjoyable, do not standout like other films Johnson and Evans have starred in.
The major exception being a wonderful sequence that details how Santa and his crew deliver all their gifts with expert precision.
Despite the predictable nature of the film, there is a certain charm to the bond that Drift and O’Malley form on the path to each regaining their Christmas spirit. Johnson and Evans have enough chemistry to keep the audience entertained despite the overly ambitious nature of the flawed script. Red One is by no means a modern Christmas classic like Elf or Klaus but it is a fun family film that one puts on in the background while wrapping presents.
