Every year during the holiday season, there are certain movies that I have to watch. I have to at least watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation one time and keep my television on a loop when the Turner networks do their “24 Hours of A Christmas Story”. For quite a while now, Hollywood comes out with a new holiday film to try and add to that list for us, but the big question remains: will one of them be added to my list?
Red One is the latest film directed by Jade Kasdan (Bad Teacher) and stars Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, Dwayne Johnson, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju and J.K. Simmons. Jack O’Malley (Evans) is a world-renown hacker who can find anyone and will do anything for a buck. When one of his jobs for an anonymous client leads to the kidnapping of Santa Claus (Simmons), his head of security in Callum Drift (Johnson) ends up joining forces with the man he feels is responsible to find out where Santa is and get him out before his annual ride, which takes place in just a few hours.
Visually, the film is beautiful got me into that Christmas mood, especially in the scenes that take place in the North Pole. There are a number of different places around the world this story takes place in, but the holiday-adorned locales were truly the best. The acting is fine overall, with what I pretty much expected from Evans and Johnson. Simmons playing Santa was refreshing for me, especially since I mainly remember him from his roles in things like Whiplash and shows like Oz.
I am actually a bit conflicted when it comes to the script itself because even though I liked the aspect of seeing Santa’s behind-the-scenes, it still felt like they tried to mix a holiday film with the feel of a Fast & Furious type of adventure films that didn’t work. Add to that the fact that this film is over two hours long with some things that could have cut from it, and this part of it didn’t live up to my expectations. I did enjoy how they really brought the history of Christmas into the plot in few scenes, but this Christmas cookie was a little burnt on the back and the milk was a tad too warm. I appreciate the attempt, but due to the visuals, I am recommending seeing Red One in the theaters in the cheapest form possible.
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