REVIEW:
Red One was a pretty decent action movie / Christmas spectacle. That’s not an easy movie to of genres right there, as Christmas movies are generally about family and love and appreciation. Sure there are plenty of Christmas comedies, but when you start getting into action you get movies like Die Hard and Violent Night, and then you get people who say these are not really Christmas movies.
The truth is, they are most definitely Christmas movies, but they play in a genre that is just not usually associated with Christmas. Well, Red One is definitely different than those other two, in that it is not rated R and it is okay for kids. That being said, they do try to push the envelope with the language and scares from time to time. The movie is rated PG-13, and that’s exactly what it deserves. Not hard enough to be R, not soft enough to be PG.
As far as the story, this one is fine. It’s pretty much what you expect from the trailer. At least in the first half. Santa has been kidnapped. There are two trackers who have to work together to try to find him. One is a North Pole employee, (Callum Drift, played by the Rock,) the other is a non-believer, naughty-lister who is your complete anti-hero (Jack O’Malley, played by Chris Evans.) These two hate each other at first, just like the formula goes for buddy cop movies or romantic comedies.
The cliches are all here, and that’s to be expected. But what does work about this movie is the mission these two go on, and how it takes them from place to place. This includes a beach front resort where they battle some vicious snowmen, and a dark, stormy castle that belongs to Santa’s brother, Krampus. The movie does get creative with things like this, and it deserves points for that. Any movie that takes a chance on expanding the mythology and creatures associated with Christmas is making a certain level of effort that deserves some recognition.
And luckily the movie sheds some of its predictability in the second half. That’s where we start learning about the villain (who is not even seen in the trailer, and that’s a very good thing.) Characters don’t necessarily end up exactly where you would expect them to, and the movie delivers on both some action and some fun. In fact, regarding the action, some of the earlier scenes in the movie are pretty great. We’re talking about both the O’Malley apartment capture scene by the North Pole workers (led by Lucy Lieu,) and the Santa kidnapping scene where Drift chases down the kidnappers using ever gadget and cool sliding technique imaginable. The movie is by no means great, but it is definitely fun and worthwhile enough to be an enjoyable time.