Red One is one of those movies that seemed better as a pitch idea for a studio executive rather than a movie. I equate to the atrociously bad The Santa Clause in which it all seemed like a good idea until they put it all together.
Apparently, in this movie, Santa Claus and the Headless Horseman are real as well as other mythological figures, which nullifies why they’re mythological. Regardless, the plot revolves around the fact that Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) is real and is under the protection of ELF (Enforcement Logistics and Fortification). His top chief of security is Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) who wants to retire after one more Christmas.
But there is trouble at the North Pole as paramilitary black ops forces under the direction of Gryla (Kiernan Shipka), who is a mythological witch of Scandinavian mythology, kidnap Santa. She wants to suck all the energy out of Santa to punish all the people she considers naughty. This leads to the Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu), director of M.O.R.A. (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) to find Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), a black-hat hacker. Jack was able to find the coordinates of Santa’s location not knowing what it was used for.
All of this could’ve been a great set-up for a great action movie. But too much gets bogged down in CGI special effects and tired cliched tropes. Johnson seems to be playing the same character since fourth Fast and Furious movie, which is no surprise here since the writer here is Chris Morgan, who has wrote for those movies. I wonder if it was his idea for them to go into space.
And Evans has basically been playing the same character outside of an MCU movie since 2019. He seems to be taking on roles that are very anti-Steve Rogers/Captain America such as in The Gray Man. I understand he doesn’t want to get typecast but aside from his role in Knives Out, most have been the same big-budget disappointments. Jack is one of those characters who does amazing things as he can hack into anything and everything. But he’s a terrible father to his son, Dylan (Wesley Kimmel).
Yep, it’s type of movie. Why do Hollywood writers or executives have to have these types of subplots? Do they think teenagers and youth will like this concept? It’s been in movies since the 1970s so it makes me wonder why no one has learned for half a century. On top of trying to find where Santa is, Jack has to deal with Dylan and his mother, Olivia (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), who wants Jack to attend some concert as Dylan is in a band. So, there’s a lot of bickering back and forth between Jack and Callum as well as the occasional action scene with not as impressive CGI.
The marketing makes a lot of use out of a huge anthropomorphic polar bear named Agent Garcia (voiced by Reinaldo Faberlle) but he’s missing for a good part of the movie. So is Santa Claus. It could be that this is really just Johnson’s movie as he was paid $50 million reportedly for his role as top billed actor and also as producer. The Wrap reported that Johnson was reportedly tardy to the film set a lot and even didn’t show up for filming some days and that cost the movie another $50 million bringing the total to $250 million.
The movie was conceived by Hiram Garcia, the brother of Dany Garcia, manager and ex-wife of Johnson who also founded the production company Seven Bucks. So both Garcias are credited as producers too. So, what you have here is movie that was intended as a vanity project for Johnson yet he refused to show up for production on several days. Filming was in the metro-Atlanta area. I know Atlanta traffic is bad not that bad.
It also may appear that audiences are getting tired of Johnson doing the same thing over and over. This is another movie like Red Notice or Black Adam. We get it, Dwayne. You’re a big guy and you want to play honorable people who busts people’s heads. Johnson really needs someone who will say “No” to him every now and again. And theatergoers might be those people. The movie debuted at $32.1 million and then dropped 59 percent in its second week to $13.3 million.
Do you smell what The Rock is cooking? It seems to be the same thing on the menu. And people are getting tired that they want to try something new.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 