![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/red-one.avif\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\u201cRed One\u201d desperately wants to be an \u201cedgy\u201d Christmas movie. Edgy Christmas movies throughout history have included everything from raunchy comedies (\u201cBad Santa,\u201d \u201cThe Ref\u201d) to intense action (\u201cFatman,\u201d \u201cViolent Night\u201d) to straight-up horror (\u201cBlack Christmas,\u201d \u201cSilent Night, Deadly Night\u201d). When edgy movies turn Christmas on its head just right, they can become blockbusters and classics like \u201cHome Alone\u201d or \u201cDie Hard.\u201d When they fail, well, they\u2019ll do whatever \u201cRed One\u201d is going to do at the box office because this movie is a big miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The heroes of \u201cRed One\u201d are security chief Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) and hacker Jack O\u2019Malley (Chris Evans). Callum works for the one and only Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons), and both love delivering presents to the good people of the world. But Cal has become jaded and lost passion for his work. It\u2019s not that he doesn\u2019t love being around Santa and his positive energy, he just thinks that the world has become overrun by people like Jack. Jack is a deadbeat dad, an unscrupulous hacker, and \u2013 given that he literally steals candy from a baby in the film\u2019s opening moments \u2013 a total sociopath. I know the point is to show that this character needs the redemption that he\u2019ll earn through the rest of the movie, but after he does that, I wasn\u2019t rooting for him to earn anything besides a prison cell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite Callum\u2019s best efforts, Santa gets kidnapped by evil witch Gryla (Kiernan Shipka). Callum\u2019s boss Harlow (Lucy Liu) learns that Jack did some hacking in relation to the abduction, and orders him brought in for questioning. The civilian gets a peek at the M.O.R.A. (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), which hints at the start of a cinematic universe that I doubt will ever be expanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack doesn\u2019t know who exactly was paying him, but middleman Ted (Nick Kroll) might. Cal reluctantly escorts Jack to Aruba to follow the lead. The scenes in Aruba last about five minutes, yet I suspect that about $200 million of this film\u2019s reported $250 million cost was spent there. The money sure didn\u2019t go toward making the movie decent, I can assure you of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack and Cal eventually have to visit Santa\u2019s brother (Kristofer Hivju) for more information. The film builds suspense around the identity of the brother, and I was like, \u201cKrampus, right?\u201d The movie treats the answer like some kind of big reveal, but I was more shocked that Benedict Cumberbatch in \u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d wasn\u2019t playing a guy named Harrison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack and Cal make a pair of unlikely partners as they race to save Santa by Christmas. There are chases and fights and hustles and one-liners, barely any of which are funny and none of which are exciting. The action scenes are all murky and cheap, and Gryla is one of the most underwhelming villains in recent memory. Somewhere along the way, Jack gets the redemption he needs and Cal learns to see the good he needs to see \u2013 which means he\u2019s not watching this movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since \u201cRed One\u201d is all about the season of giving, I\u2019ll give the movie a gift and boost it above a \u201cD\u201d rating. The reason is simple: J.K. Simmons. The Oscar-winner is primarily responsible for the one good scene in the movie, where Santa and Cal debate the necessity of generosity in an increasingly-cruel world. And I guess some of the tricks Santa uses to visit houses all over the world are cute \u2013 like wormholes, transformation technology, and military escorts (\u201cRed One\u201d refers to the sleigh, by the way). But the movie spends a good 90% of its runtime in \u201cD\u201d territory. The better edgy Christmas movie of 2024 was \u201cTerrifier 3,\u201d and it\u2019ll be a Christmas miracle if that one stays in theaters much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRed One\u201d is rated PG-13 for action, some violence, and language. Its running time is 123 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver \u201cRed One\u201d desperately wants to be an \u201cedgy\u201d Christmas movie. Edgy Christmas movies throughout history have included everything from raunchy comedies (\u201cBad Santa,\u201d \u201cThe Ref\u201d) to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":60205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[2872],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60206,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60204\/revisions\/60206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}