REVIEW: Red One – Not Even Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans Can Save This Christmas Flop

Bah, humbug! It appears as though the cinematic holiday season begins with a lump of coal rather than a brightly wrapped, bow-tied gift. Around this time of year, we always get your average cheesy, hallmark romcom or family drama that audiences seem to eat up. I, however, do prefer the occasional festive flick that offers something completely different in a year that is filled with the same thing (although this never happens as much as I would like).

Take, for instance, films that go completely against tradition and love to misbehave, or even say ‘to hell with tradition, here’s something crude or nasty or ultra-violent’. Recently, we had the devilishly enjoyable and hilariously violent action-er Violent Night in which David Harbor’s ‘Santa’ fought off criminals Home Alone style, 2015’s horror-comedy Krampus and the iconic and classic Bad Santa; perhaps the best example of them all.

Given the fact that we always get the same old festive offering, a silver lining with Red One was that it seemed to offer something refreshingly different. Red One appears as though it can do so, but that silver lining was then immediately rendered pointless when I very quickly realized it would not be able to capitalize on anything that if offers. To make matters even worse, my viewing experience of this was heavily disrupted which proves that any hope for any shred of cinema etiquette left is gone. A rant for another time.

When J.K. Simmons’ Santa Claus (code named Red One), is kidnapped from the North Pole, his head of security Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) must reluctantly team up with Chris Evans’ Jack O’ Mailey – the world’s best tracker. Before you can say the words ‘Ryan Reynolds clearly said no’, he and Drift set out to find and rescue him. Sometimes, you watch a trailer for any upcoming film and it ends up turning out exactly how you though it would. This was exactly the case for Red One. Whilst I think J.K Simmons is fantastic in general, he must be laughing all the way to the bank as this is undoubtedly the easiest cheque he has ever picked up.

Photo credit: Amazon MGM Studios

Without wishing to give too much away, he is quite literally asleep for for more than half of the film. For the parts of the film he is in, he is perfectly fine and is least of the problems. By now, pretty much everyone realizes that Dwayne Johnson does just play himself in every film and he does it again here. I actually thought this was one of the better performances he has done recently and it would be harsh to fault him for it. At the end of the day, the most admirable and respectable thing about him is that he is the people’s actor, someone who delivers mainstream, blockbuster fun that all audiences across the world love. So, credit where credit is due.

Despite joking that this is a role that clearly had Ryan Reynolds written all over it, Chris Evans works here and is quite watchable and funny. Whoever Johnson is paired with on screen, I think he does have this ability to make the chemistry work and is be able to bounce off them. Here, they are chalk and cheese and it works as well as you would want it. Red Ones special effects are woeful, almost every set piece- and there are many- involves some sort of green screen which is atrocious to look at. Most of them looked as if they belonged in an out of date video-games console.

How they made it out of the editing room is beyond me. One particular fight sequence involves Johnson using Ant-Man-esque technology to fight bad guys. I couldn’t quite believe that a mainstream Hollywood Christmas film looked this bad. Out of interest, I looked up the film’s budget which I figured would be quite substantial. Two hundred and fifty three million had somehow been splashed over this and you are left scratching your head as to where it could have possibly gone. I only presume one of the cast members had a very high salary which clearly left nothing else for them to work with.

The film’s pathetic excuse for a villain, and I hesitate to even use that word, has to be the weakest I have ever seen on screen. I reiterate once again, given the scale of this project, how on earth something like this was this weak. In the end, the worst thing about Red One is that it feels nothing more than a gigantic, extortionately expensive industrial machine. There’s simply no magic or heart to it which is what Christmas films are all about.

2/5

In cinemas now.