There was a time when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson could sell a movie on pure charm alone, but in recent years, his persona has become more of a crutch than an asset. That’s abundantly clear in the soulless, plodding Christmas action movie “Red One,” which opens Thursday evening in theaters.
It’s hard to believe that Amazon spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this loud, empty and hideous-looking holiday lump of coal, which brings a superficial superhero movie approach to familiar Christmas material.
“Red One” is a buddy comedy of sorts, with a Christmas-themed variation on the classic mismatched cop-and-criminal pairing. Johnson is the cop, as Cal Drift, head of security for the surprisingly militaristic operation run by Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons).
When Santa is kidnapped by nefarious forces, Cal has to team up with dirtbag hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), who unwittingly provided the information that allowed the kidnappers to locate Santa’s secret North Pole base. They both learn important life lessons while engaging in effects-heavy battles against dangerous foes.
‘Red One’ squanders an impressive cast
Johnson may be coasting on his well-established public image at this point, but “Red One” nevertheless manages to make poor use of his limited but still appealing talents. Cal is a humorless scold who’s lost his enthusiasm for Christmas after working for Santa for 500-plus years, and he spends most of the movie grimacing, without even offering a signature Rock eyebrow raise. If Johnson wants to bring more seriousness to his acting, this is the wrong place for it.
Johnson also has no chemistry with Evans as the casually amoral criminal who’ll do any job for anyone as long as the price is right. Evans made his version of Captain America into an admirable, inspiring superhero across numerous Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but he’s never convincing here as either the irresponsible screw-up or the remorseful parent who has to learn to be a better dad. The character arc between Jack and his estranged son Dylan (Wesley Kimmel) is so perfunctory that it feels insulting.
In his second time playing Santa Claus (after voicing the title character in the Netflix animated movie “Klaus”), Simmons brings an effective mix of snark and sentimentality to the character, with a macho yet sensitive energy that recalls Kurt Russell’s similar performance in the “Christmas Chronicles” movies. But he’s literally unconscious for the bulk of the time, and by the time he’s roused, there’s nothing he can do to salvage the movie.
The biggest surprise is Kiernan Shipka as the evil Christmas witch Grýla, who has an ill-defined plan to use Santa’s powers to punish all the naughty people across the world. Shipka, who’s still mostly known for teen-drama roles, brings a classic Disney-villain vibe to her performance, and it’s a shame that she spends nearly the entire movie monologuing to herself in her lair.
The plot and visual style are equally incoherent
There’s not much to Grýla’s nefarious agenda, which makes it even more unforgivable that “Red One” drags on past the two-hour mark. Screenwriter Chris Morgan, who’s written most of the “Fast & Furious” movies, fills “Red One” with exposition and extraneous detours, and even Jack’s presence seems unnecessary once he provides Cal with the limited information he has. Kristofer Hivju of “Game of Thrones” looks impressive as Krampus, but the lengthy sequence set in his castle serves essentially no purpose.
Lucy Liu struts around as the movie’s equivalent of Nick Fury, the head of an agency that tracks and polices mythological entities like Santa. Like nearly every big-budget movie now, “Red One” strains to set up a potential cinematic universe, with cameos and references to other mythological figures, but there’s no sense of an exciting wider world to explore. Loading Santa up with guns and rockets only makes him seem less magical.
The action scenes from director Jake Kasdan (the “Jumanji” movies) are mostly jumbles of CGI blurs, with some especially egregious green-screen work. Krampus and his minions stand out because their designs are created largely with prosthetics, while the CGI elves and other creatures in Santa’s workshop look like rejects from the “Star Wars” prequels.
There’s no holiday cheer in ‘Red One’
It’s hard to understand what the target audience even is for “Red One,” which features only one minor kid character and lacks the kind of humor that would draw in a young audience. The dialogue is peppered with as many swear words as are allowed for a PG-13 movie, but “Red One” doesn’t resemble the kind of gritty, violent take on Christmas seen in movies like “Violent Night” or “Fatman.” Kasdan and Morgan aim for an awkward middle ground that is instead likely to please no one.
Seemingly made solely to fulfill an algorithmic requirement once it lands on Prime Video, “Red One” evokes no genuine emotion and captures none of the sweetness or warmth of the holiday season. It’s a noisy, ugly exercise in cynical brand-building that doesn’t deserve the franchise it’s attempting to launch.
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