Red One
Watching Jake Kasdan’s Red One, one has the impression that the art of cinema has been killed. What could’ve been a simple premise turned into high-octane entertainment is instead one of the most soul-crushing, visually ugly, and poorly acted blockbusters likely ever crafted in the history of this art form now diluted into by-committee garbage. Soul-crushing in the sense that Kasdan and cinematographer Dan Mindel burned $250 million to the ground to suck the soul and magic out of Christmas filmmaking with two A-listers looking like they weren’t even on the same set filming their scenes.
And they probably weren’t. Reports of star Dwayne Johnson frequently being seven to eight hours late on set and missing several days of shooting ballooned the already expensive $200 million budget by $50 million. Co-star Chris Evans and director Kasdan himself admitted to being accurate, but not in the way its reports framed it. Whether or not the reported information is true is beside the point because one has the impression that Johnson filmed the scenes he missed using a green screen while Evans was physically on set.
Or was he? In any event, the movie has practically nothing going for it, save for a somewhat fun opening scene that posits the character of Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) as the naughtiest of all naughty listers. A flashback in his childhood days sees him smartly debunk the existence of Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons), while its opening credits scene, set 30 years later, follows Jack completely unchanged from his childhood self, burning down a Christmas tree to perform an impossible-to-obtain task.
But the fun quickly stops here. Kasdan and editors Mark Helfrich, Steve Edwards, and Tara Timpone cut to head of North Pole Security Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson, further embarrassing himself on screen) and Santa leaving from a dingy mall to the North Pole, coupled by a U.S. Military Fighter Jet escort to boot. Because who doesn’t think of Santa without first considering…the United States Military? In any event, the audience is quickly introduced to a re-mythologized Saint Nick and the North Pole, who prepares to deliver presents before Callum announces his retirement from the ELF (Enforcement, Logistics, and Fortification) force to Santa.
He’s become disillusioned by the magic of Christmas. More and more children are placed on the naughty list each year, which includes Jack’s own son, Dylan (Wesley Kimmel), while his father is a Level-4 Naughty Lister. Johnson hammering these terrible lines with a straight face as if it’s someone experiencing a profound crisis of faith has to be the worst performance in a career filled with wanting to become a ‘brand’ instead of an actor (the way in which he promotes his projects like a wrestling match hammers this home). In fact, only Richard Kelly and Michael Bay took him seriously as a capital A actor with career-best roles in Southland Tales and Pain & Gain
However, as he became a more recognizable figure within Hollywood, Johnson has always wanted to make movies that shape his ‘brand’—nothing more, nothing less. Red One is indicative of Johnson’s philosophy that movies are mindless content designed to push as many products as possible instead of doing something meaningful for the culture. Perhaps he will in Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, but he hasn’t been doing good work for a very long time.
Is it the screenplay’s fault? To be honest, Kasdan is a decent director, as evidently illustrated in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story or the two Jumanji sequels, the latter both starring The Rock. But he seems to find no joy in bringing Callum and Jack together, with the naughty lister having inadvertently sold off Santa’s location to Grýla (Kiernan Shipka), the Christmas witch. Grýla kidnaps Santa, which leads into the film’s first action setpiece: a hodgepodge of digital stitches and indescribable CGI gunk slapdashed in front of the screen, where no movement seems natural, or the camerawork kinetic.
It all feels artificially synthetic, whether in the environment itself which is nothing but digitally constructed cars, jets, and snowmobiles, or even in how Johnson electronically moves within the frame. No one on this planet can enjoy such drivel with a straight face, because Kasdan laughs at the audience who would ever think this is remotely good. But the worst, and most self-defeating part of this whole affair is not that the film never looks like a giant $250 million blockbuster, but that Kasdan got cinematographer Dan Mindel to collaborate with him, one of the very best directors of photography in the game.
Mindel has recently worked with Lee Isaac Chung on Twisters, and has delivered some of the most staggering (and often poetic) photography of any major blockbuster released this year. The emulsion of 35mm film adds pronounced, textured colors to the lustful green fields of corn, or the red dirt on the ground. The shot of its fields reverberating in the wind is one of 2024’s most potent images, and a reminder of the cinematographer’s talent, as he showcased multiple times either through his multiple collaborations with director J.J. Abrams or his career-best work in Tony Scott’s Domino.
Anyone would be forgiven to think that Mindel had nothing to do with this, because his personality and style is nowhere to be found in Red One, even when capturing the film’s only impressive sequence, where Callum is forced to play Krampusschlap with Krampus himself (Kristofer Hivju). It’s the sole scene that feels decidedly playful, because the makeup work on Nick’s evil brother is consistently impressive, and the anticipation of a powerful slap only grows more palpable when The Rock toys with it and lets the audience feel the tension mounting (his only good moment, plucked straight out of WWE).
But this fun is short-lived, because, in getting out of the situation, Callum enlarges two Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots, just like he has a plethora of Hot Wheels cars on displays. It’s all about product placement and brand recognition, never in wanting to make a Christmas movie to remind audiences of the joys of spending the holidays with your loved ones or friends.
Where are scenes that tickle the imagination and make a child widen their eyes in excitement at seeing the North Pole come to life and Santa Claus work his magic at delivering Christmas presents? Definitely not in this movie, because Simmons is sidelined for most of it, dozing off in quasi-coma, with his energy slowly drained by Grýla. Speaking of, Shipka does not need to make a name for herself by starring in this. She’s so far above this material that it’s not even funny, and portraying such a character only sinks her promising career, particularly in its CGI-heavy-climax where no actor should ever subject themselves to what Shipka is forced to do, likely against her will.
It’s even worse when Evans and Johnson have little to no chemistry together, with the two acting in entirely different directions. Again, they probably did. Johnson wasn’t on set for most of the film, to which he even admitted, while Evans desperately wants this movie to work, but has material and shoddy visual effects that completely sink him. It’s sad to see such a great actor reduced to starring in fake movies post-MCU, and Knives Out, with roles that never do him a single favor. He seems to have fun here, but that seems only the case because Evans is entirely in his element, riffing on characters he played in the past, such as Johnny Storm and Lucas Lee.
Jack O’Malley certainly feels like an amalgamation of these characters (and it undoubtedly helps that Evans reprised his role as Storm in Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine before this came out), which makes sense that Evans would position this protagonist in that regard. But his arc is so pitifully clichéd that none of the surprises or emotional swells hit because they’re either hindered by garish, lifeless visual effects or seen a mile away. One such emotional scene shows Jack connecting profoundly with his son for the first time, which could be moving. However, audiences are so distracted by the CGI snow and uneven lighting of the scene that they immediately do not care about this pure moment of happiness he experiences.
The same thing can be said for its final scene, which could’ve been an uplifting conclusion to such a dreary affair, but is instead symptomatic of our current corrupted-by-television culture cinema is currently ongoing: non-moving digital backgrounds stitch a physical character within its environment and makes them perform synthetic feats of derring-do that look about as good as a generative AI video amalgamating two fake humans together as one individual whose mouth can’t make a complete sentence, and whose body moves like jelly. That’s how bad this $250 million catastrophe looks, and anyone who brings their children to this piece of gobbledygook may give them a far worse present than a lump of coal.
To be blunt, Red One may be the most punishing Christmas movie ever to be released by a major motion picture, with no soul, magic, or whimsy for children and families to enjoy as they prepare for the most wonderful time of the year. Even the third opus of The Santa Clause, while terrible, had far more joy and lived-in imagination than any synthesized frame of this dreck, whose only goal is to, once again, position The Rock as a ‘brand’ and not an actor.
That wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if everything around this were somewhat decent. Unfortunately, Kasdan doesn’t even seem to care in delivering fun family entertainment than he did in his previous Jumanji efforts. Mindel’s touch is non-existent, the actors feel like they’re never on the same set (don’t get this critic started on how it wastes Lucy Liu and her terrible wig), and the action scenes rank high as some of the biggest junk this cinematic culture has seen in a long time, far worse than the dreadful setpieces of Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle. The only way to stop this trend this artform is taking shape is by not giving these movies any money whatsoever, and support intelligent, human-made art by independent creators. This critic took the risk of seeing Red One for this publication, in IMAX, no less.
As a result, he now knows what the ninth circle of Hell looks like. Spoiler alert: it’s not worth discovering.