Red One may feature two incredibly fun performances from Chris Evans and J. K. Simmons in what could have been an entertaining holiday fantasy adventure, but with a story largely void of laughter, excitement or holiday cheer, instead makes for one incredibly forgettable Christmas film that squanders the talents of its cast.

 

Director Jake Kasdan found initial success with R rated comedies like Orange County, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Sex Tape, but he struck gold when he teamed up with Dwayne Johnson to reboot Jumanji with 2016’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. A surprise hit of the holiday movie season, Kasdan and Johnson earned themselves an equally entertaining sequel, which created excitement surrounding their latest film. Leaving behind the jungles of Jumanji and tapping into the Christmas spirit, Red One despite its poorly received trailers, held promise of recapturing the fun family adventure that Kasdan and Johnson struck gold twice with Jumanji that with a star studded cast featuring Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka and J. K. Simmons as Santa Claus himself, should have been an easy crowd pleasing film. However, there is little holiday cheer or fun to be had in Red One as it squanders the great work of Evans and Simmons, leaving critics puzzled as to how Kasdan and Johnson went so wrong with their latest team-up.

 

Christmas movies are typically full of joy and bright colours, and though audiences should not expect an overload of joy in a film about Santa Claus being kidnapped, Red One is surprisingly bland and lifeless. There is lots of world building and mythology revolving around Santa Claus, Krampus and Gryla the Winter Witch, providing a basis for what could be a very fun and intriguing holiday fantasy flick, but the screenplay is very surface level. While the ideas are present, they are never fully developed to create a truly engaging world for the story to play out in, nor is it presented in an entertaining manner. The film is void of the Christmas joy and spirit that audiences have come to expect from the holiday genre apart from the film’s opening and closing ten minutes, both of which showed the potential that the story had. Pile on top an incredibly dark looking film void of colour and some truly questionable CGI at times, it's hard to imagine that direct Jake Kasdan and the story’s creator Hiram Garcia were behind Johnson’s Jumanji films as they are both the exact opposite of what Red One was and everything it should have been. Even an overload of Christmas decorations and music would have helped liven the spirits of this film, so thankfully a much needed needle drop from the Queen of Christmas herself Mariah Carey closes out the film and reminds audiences why holiday films are a beloved genre because the majority of Red One fails to do exactly that.

 

There are some bright moments in the film, and they largely come from Evans and Simmons. Evans, once again distancing himself from his most iconic role as Captain America, is the co-lead opposite Johnson as Jack O’Malley, the bad boy bounty hunter who must help save Christmas. There is a mean streak to Evans’s O’Malley, who literally steals candy from children, has a bad attitude and uses foul language, and Evans is having a blast doing this. He brings an infectious energy to the film that generates some genuine laughter as his character cannot shake his criminal ways and discovers the unseen world of Christmas, but also helps to build the Christmas spirit as you see his character evolve into a more caring person, much like one of the most beloved Christmas characters of all time: the Grinch. Simmons, on the other hand as Santa, is a blast, giving audiences an incredibly unique portrayal of the man with the bag. He has heart, but with a more gruff and formidable iteration of Santa, it perfectly taps into Simmons charm that has defined countless performances of his. It’s just too bad he has barely more than four scenes in a two hour film, as the film could have benefited greatly with more screen time for Simmons.