Many Christmas films have revolved around a recurring concept: “What if Santa Claus were real?” The imaginary world of that question can create something as earnestly sincere as the 1940s classic “The Miracle on 34th Street” or more zanily amusing like the original 90s “The Santa Clause”. Whatever mode the reimagining of the tale might take, the point is always to bring a level of wonder mixed with realism to the quaint notion of the jolly, rotund older man who takes joy in bringing cheer to children throughout the Christmas season. Whatever the incarnation, that focus on the joyous warmth of the Santa Claus mythology is most profound. It is unfortunate, then, that Jake Kasdan directs the new release “Red One” with nary an ounce of charm or tenderness that one would hope for in the first major Christmas blockbuster of the year.
When Santa Claus goes missing on the day before Christmas Eve, seemingly abducted by members of a black ops team, the members of Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (MORA) and Claus’ Enforcement Logistics and Fortification (ELF) team must depend on the skills of hacker and bounty-hunter to solve the mystery and save Christmas. And so, “Red One” imagines this tale of a potentially disastrous and Santa-less Christmas as an action-comedy film. There would be traces of something ingenious in that idea if Chris Morgan’s screenplay, from a story by producer Hiram Garcia, was not such an uninspired assembly of some of the most rote dynamics.
Morgan and Garcia have both worked significantly with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and by a quarter of the way into “Red One” it becomes clear that the film was conceived as an opportunity for Johnson’s role as Callum Drift, head of Santa’s security team. From the moment he appears on screen, showcasing one of the handful of facial expressions he delivers throughout the film, Johnson is indicating a performance that is impossible to distinguish from the slew of intimidating tough guys that he tends to play on screen. Sticking to what you know best is one thing, but as Drift teams-up with hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) and the films becomes a buddy-comedy of sorts as the two men travel around the world tracking the missing Santa Claus, “Red One” reveals itself to be empty of ideas and imagination. It is like a Christmas film whose filmmakers have only ever seen a bad superhero film before, and so each beat imagines that our allegiances are inherently placed where they need to be – with those seeking out to do the saving – and with no interest in developing any meaningful reason for us to be attached to these characters.
This is bad news for Johnson who cannot seem to differentiate the role of Santa’s right-hand man from the robotic ambivalence with which he portrayed Black Adam. It is even worse news for Evans, whose post-Marvel career has been a series of strange choices in roles that do little to serve any of his natural gifts. “Red One” might be the nadir, though. It is not solely his fault that Morgan’s screenplay has no idea how to present Evans’ deadbeat dad as someone to care for. But it is made all the worse by Evans’ own inability to play the role of the affable loser the film needs for the character’s trajectory to work. Evans is not a consummate comedian, and he plays Jack with too much suave and superciliousness to believably play off Johnson’s stolidity or to make a moment that should be the film’s emotional climax believably effective. The lack of chemistry between him and Johnson also turns a large portion of the film into a charmless bit of deadweight as we watch the two men bicker with nary a punchline, or any kind of visual verve to provide any panache.
This is the kind of film where a character’s entire trajectory can be summed up in a vague description of their character type. Lucy Lui appears as a no-nonsense director of MORA whose only character-note seems to be her imperiousness. Bonnie Hunt is a constantly smiling Mrs Claus who has no identity beyond generic warmth. J K Simmons’ very ripped Santa Claus, who is neither particularly rotund or jolly, has a heart-to-heart with his right-hand man while working out in the gym and waxing lyrically about how many calories he burns on Christmas Eve. One imagines that this is meant to be amusing, but the visual flatness of Dan Mindel’s cinematography turns much of what we see into a murky and too-often colourless spectacle. In the climactic action-scene when Kiernan Shipka’s Christmas villain shows her true form, the rhythms of the editing feel as emotionally checked as the entire lumbering 123 minutes of “Red One”.
That “Red One” cost US$250 million is a puzzle that I cannot quite solve. It moves with the lethargic energy of a film that emerged from a lack of passion, imagination of whimsy. It offers nothing that is daring or surprising or risky or empathetic in its idea of the world and even its urgent quest to save Christmas feels desultory. If “Red One” is meant to mark the beginning of the filmic Christmas season, the holidays ahead look to be more dismal than anything.
Red One is currently playing in local cinemas
