'Red One' Review: A Harmless, Painless But Also Weightless Big-Budget Holiday Trifle

Amazon's would-be theatrical tentpole, starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, is better when it prioritizes Christmas cheer instead of generic action spectacle.

Red One (2024)
Directed by Jake Kasdan
Written by Chris Morgan
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, J.K. Simmons, Lucy Liu and Bonnie Hunt
rated PG-13 (but really, it’s an 80s-style PG)
122 minutes
opening theatrically courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Yes, all parties involved with Amazon MGM Studios’ Red One have made better big-budget action-fantasy flicks, sometimes with each other. Director Jake Kasdan helmed the two shockingly good (and shockingly successful) Jumanji sequels. Frankly, I’d wager Sony recently announcing a fourth such film in the franchise was correlated with, if not caused by, the expected soft reception to this (also starring Dwayne Johnson) comparative trifle. However, without getting into the budget (give me a minute), Red One is a harmless and mostly spry holiday action comedy. 95% of those walking into Red One will just want an all-quadrant holiday flick starring The Rock and Steve Rogers (ironically playing a PG-rated version of his pre-MCU screen persona) in a fantastical mad-cap race to rescue a kidnapped Santa Claus before Christmas is “ruined.” And in that sense, Red One is aggressively “fine, whatever.” 

The first 25 minutes are pretty good, with our deadbeat dad antihero (Evans) establishing himself as a selfish, cynical little prick. At the same time, Santa Claus’ head of security (Johnson) works through Christmas Eve day disenchanted enough with humanity to be turning in his walking papers. Johnson’s heart-to-heart conversations with Saint Nick (J.K. Simmons, giving real gravitas and heft without trying too hard) are engrossing. However, Callum Drift’s discontent can’t be terribly specific, as this is an apolitical and agnostic holiday flick intended to air globally on a streaming platform. It loses some steam after the abduction while going through the motions with Johnson and Evans reluctantly teaming up and engaging in primarily generic scenarios that mainly exist to look “big” in the theatrical trailer. Red One improves a bit in its second half as the story begins to tie into other various forms of Christmas folklore. 

I’m old enough to remember that for every Elf, we tended to get a few Jingle All the Way-type trifles. Granted, Jingle All the Way didn’t cost a reported $253 million. On that, it’s worth noting that regardless of whether Johnson’s alleged... dividing of his attention caused the production budget to increase, the core issue is that the film was intended exclusively for Prime Video. This means that the big-name talent (Johnson, Chris Evans, etc.) got upfront paychecks in lieu of box office-specific bonuses. Without being overly simplistic, that’s a key reason why, for example, mega-budget streaming flicks like Red Notice tend to look less “cinematic” than mid-budget theatrical programmers like Bullet Train. I will say that Red One looks and feels “bigger” and more “like a real movie” than (for example) Red Notice or Ghosted, not to pick on this film’s co-leads. 

To his credit, Johnson doesn’t quite play an invincible superman this time out, and one of the better action beats concerns a brief fisticuff with a character who knows that he can crush our hero into paste if he so chooses. None of this reinvents the wheel, or is all that spectacular. I mean, not to get too spoiler-y, but yes, Evans’ criminal eventually makes a good-faith effort to get off the naughty list. No, the film does not end with Santa Claus lying in a pool of his own blood while Christmas comes and goes with empty stockings and heartbroken kids, as not even Terrifier 3 offered up that kind of courage. I appreciated the subtle “debate” about the very existence of naughty lists since Christianity does put quite a bit of stock in the whole “heaven and hell” thing. 

We can debate whether multiplexes and theatrical advocates should be “thanking” Amazon for “gifting” multiplexes this holiday title amid an otherwise barren pre-and-post election day season. Although my silly theory behind the whole “non-franchise films that play in theaters, even if they don’t perform well at the box office, perform better on streaming than SVOD originals” factor is that Amazon is releasing tentpole-ish movies like this and the upcoming Masters of the Universe reboot to get better at promoting and distributing their own films for when James Bond 26 rolls along. And if Red One becomes the “next Argylle,” the difference is that Prime Video has a bigger and healthier membership base that will indeed sample their theatrical releases when they come to streaming.  

Red One is somewhat burdened by its budget and existence as a massively expensive would-be franchise starter in a time when almost every big theatrical release is treated as a proverbial underdog and tasked with “saving the theatrical industry.” It’s nowhere near as good as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle or Rampage. Heck, I’d argue Apple’s Ryan Reynolds/Will Ferrell Christmas Carol riff Spirited was a better (and certainly less busy) streaming-specific holiday comedy. If I’m being overly generous by treating Red One with more of a shrug than a closed fist, it’s partially because it gets the job done on its own limited merits while preaching a particular Veggie Tales-worthy strain of compassion, redemption, and forgiveness. Damming with faint praise, perhaps, but if I get dragged to see it again with my wife and whichever kids come along, I won’t be that opposed.