Red One review

Happy Holidays, you eccentric elves! It’s your favorite kristmas kroc hitting the airwaves with a…review? I feel as if that word might be too kind for the literary lashing the next few paragraphs are bound to bring, given my feelings on this… quite frankly bizarre piece of cinema. Though, if I’m being honest, most of my negativity towards the film only really came when I gave myself some time to really reflect on how utterly slapdash this movie was. My initial reaction was more one of confusion than anything. Mainly confusion as to a 250 million dollar budget, several high-profile celebrities who I assume would as least be somewhat cautious about the roles they chose, if only to protect their own reputations, and a studio run by Amazon and fucking MGM could all culminate to produce a movie that genuinely looks worse than most independent films were pulling off in the late 90s and early 2000s. Even before I saw the film, I had a hard time believing this thing was even real. When I first saw clips online, I thought it was a joke, a bit like those fake trailers in Grindhouse. It was only until seeing the carboard standees at my local AMC and catching a trailer for it in front of Transformers One did I realize this film was actually real, despite how much I now wish it wasn’t.

(This one of the dreariest interpretations of the North Pole I've ever seen. Fucking Midgar looks more welcoming that this place.)

Okay but before I just go in on an angry rant about this film, let’s start with a quick recap while I try to remember if there’s... anything... I enjoyed about this tinsel tarted trainwreck. The main plot follows Dwayne Johnson as Santa’s right-hand man. When Santa (portrayed by J.K Simmons, who’s the only one with any real sense of energy behind his performance) goes missing, Dwayne recruits Chris Evan’s character, Jack O Malley, to help retrieve him. Only problem is that O Malley is a career criminal who goes by ‘the wolf’ and was the one who sold the information to Santa’s kidnappers that allowed them to find his compound, yes Santa has a fucking compound in this movie and it’s somehow the dreariest possible interpretation of the North Pole. Despite the use of Christmas color schemes and some, quite frankly hideous, magical creatures running around. The whole area looks like a themed shopping mall that’s slowly going out of business, dimly lit and smeared with this with grey tinting that only serves to leave the setting feeling far too muted for the cheery vibe the film is going for. Fuck, there’s a scene early on where Dwayne is chasing Santa’s kidnappers, and it legitimately looks like the Bike escape scene from Final Fantasy 7 but exponentially uglier. The set design in this movie is at best generic and at worst, downright unfitting for the story and locations but I digress. Johnson and Malley begin trotting the globe in the search for Santa that leads them into conflict with the ancient witch Grýla (played by Kiernan Shipka) who is putting together a plan to essentially imprison everyone on the naughty list in magic snow globes using energy stolen from Santa. Now, you’ll notice that I’m referring to every character by their name aside from Dwayne Johnson’s and the reason for that is he really doesn’t play a character. He simply gives the same performance he does in almost all of his roles. Generally self-serious with an intense look on his face. There’s none of the charisma that endeared audiences to the actor in the first place, no attempt to put a particular spin on the role that would differentiate it from any other character he’s played. It’s like Dwayne is on auto pilot. The rest of the cast fares only slightly better, Kiernan Shipka tries to imbue Grýla with a certain air of menace but comes off more or less like a Power Rangers villain, complete with a ridiculously ostentatious outfit and scene-chewing overacting. 

(I do feel bad because Shipka seems like a promising young actor doing her best but she is either given the worst possible direction imaginable or just given almost no direction and had to figure this shit out herself)

Chris Evans, meanwhile, is essentially trying to put on his best Ryan Reynolds impression, unsuccessfully trying to come off snarky in such a forced manner that it ends ups being more grating than anything. All throughout the movie, I was desperately waiting for another character to deck O Malley in the face hard enough to knock out teeth but no such luck, I’m afraid. And the few times in which Evans tries to imbue O Malley with any kind of emotional depth end up being fucking laughable both due to dialogue corny enough to be laughed off the set of a Disney Channel original and Chris constantly staring offset like he silently considering whether or not he’s just going to walk away and say ‘fuck it’ to this whole farce of a production. Something not only he, but everyone involved with the production, should’ve done honestly. I’m genuinely sorry if my criticism is a little all over the place but this movie is a fucking Matryoshka doll of problems. Every time I try to dig into one flaw, it ends up reminding me of another and another and another until I’m replaying this entire movie in my head and finding new problems within every scene I remember. It’s a mess, pure and simple, and the only bright spots come in the form of J.K Simmons as Santa, who does try to imbue a sense of warmth into his character (even if the script gives him little to do outside of the opening, he spends most of the film asleep in a chair. ) and Kristofer Hivju as Krampus, who we meet in the latter half of the film. Outside of Simmons, Hivju seems to be the only one enjoying himself in this movie and the writers even attempted to give his character a small arc, subverting the idea of Krampus being the obvious Christmas villain. It’s incredibly underbaked and doesn’t amount to anything as Krampus doesn’t do much of anything other than show up in the climax only to be literally brushed aside but…hey, someone tried. Krampus and his castle full of minions also mark the only good special effects in the film as the monster makeup work by Joel Harlow and his team is admittedly excellent, though it makes me wonder why the rest of the creatures are CG when the production studio already sprang for a such a talent team of makeup and special effect artists.  Rounding out the notable cast members is Lucy Liu, the director of a S.H.I.E.L.D knock off named M.O.R.A who exists only to bring Johnson and Evan’s characters together and to continually call them up every so often to say ‘hey, you gotta get Santa back. Remember that you gotta get Santa.’ As if the movie was worried the audience would forget why the main characters are even doing anything. While it’s nice to see Ms. Liu get work, she’s a very talented actor, she’s utterly pointless in this movie and you cut almost all of her scenes and have it change nothing about the plot. Oh, and Reinaldo Faberlle plays an anthropomorphic polar bear portrayed with terrible C.G.I. He’s in all the marketing but he’s barely in the actual movie and does nothing. I’m not sure if this character was meant to be in more of the film and their scenes were cut or something but as it is, this character is also effectively pointless. I’m not sure why there even in the movie other than to be a marketable mascot.

(Seriously, both Liu and this fucking bear were in all of the marketing and they're just... non-presences in the final film. Did the fucking C.G budget run out halfway through or did this movie just get hacked to ribbons in an editing bay and most of these characters scenes ended up being lost? I'm actually curious now)

In summation, this movie is not only bad, but also so utterly inept as to be baffling. From what I’ve been able to find in my brief research into this movie’s production. This was meant to Prime Video release that got bumped up to a theatrical run after a delay from last December to now, which might explain the relatively cheap C.G, the film was also meant to have a 200-mil budget until several delays in the shooting process, mainly caused by Johnson showing up late to set or just not coming at all, managed to cost the production an extra 50 million dollars. Dwayne Johnson himself was also paid 50 million for his involvement alone which means the actual budget was somewhere in the 150-million-dollar range before marketing. Still not cheap by any means but far less than one would initially believe. From what little has come about this film’s production so far, it sounds as this thing’s production got hit with a bad case of Murphy’s law, with everything that could go wrong, going wrong. Johnson in particular seemed to be more of a sore spot than he was worth, with reports of him being difficult to work with, pulling his best Low Tier impression and pissing in bottles for some fucking reason, and having his publicist pick out select journalists to cover to the film…only to later tell them they couldn’t actually cover the movie, presumably because even the people trying to sell this movie knew they had a corporate albatross on their hands. From day one of shooting to the eventual release, Red One just had everything possible working against it and I genuinely feel bad for director Jake Kasdan and the rest of the cast who had to put up with Johnson’s antics. The people behind this project tried their hardest to make something nice…only to still end up making the biggest lump of cinematic coal imaginable. Safe to say that no-one should waste their time nor money on this fucking thing in theaters, if you happen to finding it on a streaming services in a couple months (because oh boy, I get the feeling Amazon MgM is gonna cut their losses and get this thing out theaters a.s.a.p) then it might a fun ‘so bad, it’s good’ flick with a couple of eggnogs but otherwise, this is one festive farce that ain’t worth celebrating

(Honestly, if there just a movie about these dopey monsters being belligerent drunks throughout the holidays and they had makeup this good, I think you would have had a much better movie on your hands)

Until next time, have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukah, a merry…Kwanza? I’ve never met anyone who actually celebrates that holiday but hey, if you do then more power to ya. Whatever gets ya through these cold winter months. And always remember, to Krank up the Noise! Oh, and if you have any open bottles, do yourself a favor and keep them far away from Dwayne Johnson, Good Night Everybody!

( see ya soon! Here's hoping the holiday are time of peace, connection and trying not to think about how much of a shitshow the next 4 years are gonna be)