Director: Jake Kasdan
Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Duration: 122 minutes
Red One (4K UHD) – Movie Review
Even though the sun is shining again and the holiday season is already well behind us, a relaxing holiday movie is a great excuse for a feel-good moment. It has been quite a few years since any interesting holiday movies came out, though, and we often go back to the classics like Home Alone, The Nightmare Before Christmas, or The Santa Clause. Due to this, we had fairly low expectations of Red One, which eventually proved to be extremely unjustified. Red One is a movie that’s worth watching, and here’s why.
Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) has had a fairly rough childhood, and he grew up to be somewhat of a Grinch. He is currently working shady jobs by tracking things down for people while also wasting his money on gambling. He has a son, but doesn’t really look after him, as he believes he is unfit to be a father. During his last job, he had to track seismic activity at the North Pole for a client who offered to pay him a lot. Little did he know he was actually forwarding this data to a malevolent third party who was looking for Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons).
In the meantime, Santa was preparing for Christmas but still needed a breather by visiting a mall to listen to some children to hear what they wanted for Christmas. Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) always accompanies Santa as his bodyguard. Callum is slowly losing faith in humanity, as for the first time in history, more people are on the Naughty List than on the Nice List. Callum feels that he cannot keep doing his job in good conscience and that it’s time for someone younger to take over his job. Santa doesn’t want Callum to go, but he respects his choice. However, when Santa gets kidnapped, Callum vows to bring him home and find the one who did it. To do so, he’ll be needing the help of Jack, who is the cause of this whole mess.
The movie has a great balance between action and story exposition. There is never a dull moment to be found, which is surprising for a movie such as this that has a runtime of roughly two hours. The movie sets the tone right off the bat, and it keeps chugging along without any real pauses in terms of story evolution. While not all characters are fully fleshed out, the viewer has all the necessary information to know what is going on while also being able to get attached to some of the characters. Red One may be a proper holiday movie in spirit, but it’s still an action flick first and foremost.
Red One boasts an impressive cast, even though you’ll mainly see Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans stealing the show. That doesn’t mean we don’t see any other veterans here, however, as Lucy Liu graces the movie with her presence and J.K. Simmons plays none other than Santa himself. Other main cast members include Bonnie Hunt, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Nick Kroll, Kristofer Hivju, Kiernan Shipka, and quite a few others. It’s safe to say that the acting performances are of top-notch quality here. Dwayne Johnson is, as always, stuck in a typecasting situation, but it works well for the story that Red One conveys and his part in it. Chris Evans does a formidable job portraying somewhat of a modern Grinch. All in all, the quality here is great, and it’s a shame that such an A-lister project bombed when it was released in movie theatres.
To our surprise, a physical copy of Red One comes with no bonus features whatsoever. You’ll have to make do with the main feature, and that’s it. This was rather disappointing. We would have loved to see some creative behind-the-scenes footage or some insights from the cast and crew. We love adding physical copies to our collection, as these often have interesting special features, and we always regret it when there’s no additional incentive to pick up a Blu-ray or 4K UHD instead of just streaming a film or show.
Conclusion
It’s a shame that Red One turned out to be a box office bomb when it originally came out, as this is a genuine fun adventure comedy film with a massive cast backing things up. With some online digging, we were happy to see that its streaming debut was a lot more successful, perhaps putting the movie on its way to becoming a cult hit over time. Although Christmas is still roughly eight months away, we can still easily recommend giving Red One a chance, as it’s a great movie for teens and adults alike. It’s only a shame that a physical copy of the film doesn’t come with any bonus content.
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