Red One is where Santa meets superheroes. While that doesn’t sound like a winning combination, the movie is surprisingly enjoyable. Though the superhero genre hasn’t made a lot of money this year, Red One manages to take the quippy buddy formula that made Marvel millions and forge a modest box office success. Not many holiday films this year are worth watching, but Red One is the exception.
In Red One, Callum Drift (played by Dwayne Johnson) is about to retire from his job as a bodyguard for Santa Claus (played by a surprisingly ripped J.K. Simmons). However, Callum stays on after Santa is kidnapped and recruits the help of a thief named Jack O’Malley (played by Chris Evans) to get Santa back. and them trying to save Santa. The twist is that Jack is on the naughty list, which creates conflict between him and Callum.
In the movie, Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evan’s characters are a rival to friend duo. These two start off hating each other and once Christmas is saved, they start to like each other a bit more. The movie didn’t deliver many lines from Santa, mainly because he’s not very responsive after being kidnapped. The reindeers in Red One are fun depictions, adding onto the Christmasy vibe.
The visuals in this movie were all over the place at times, but not bad. Some of the shots failed to deliver the Christmas vibe. The scenes with Krampus were some of the darker shots during the movie. The shots went from dark to bright and happy throughout the movie, but most of the scenes didn’t give of the Christmas feeling.
Red One seems like it wouldn’t be the best Christmas movie, since there are some superhero vibes but it wasn’t too bad. The movie draws its target audience in. Red One has some good laughs and surprises packed into it, but at some times it lacks these two things.
There are many times in the movie that are more hyped than others, but overall it was an interesting movie. Watching Red One in theaters is better than watching it at home simply because the action and visuals are bigger and better. For anyone who loves action packed Christmas movies, Red One is a great movie to watch.
