RED ONE (2024)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*                                                                                                                              Christmas has come and gone, but I wasn't very tempted to check out RED ONE at the time, as I felt it unlikely that it would leave me with any "Christmassy" feelings. Now that I have seen it, I think that though it's not the absolute worse Xmas-themed film I've seen, I'd be more likely to view even junk like JINGLE ALL THE WAY as preferable holiday fare.                                                                                                                                                                RED ONE (a codename for Santa Claus) was originally intended to go straight to streaming. But RED got a limited theatrical release, probably on the strength of star Dawyne Johnson's name, and that box office may have put a slight dent in the film's $250 million dollar budget, despite general critical disapproval. The core idea came from Hiram Garcia, listed as a producer on at least half a dozen Dwayne Johnson projects before this, including the pestilential BLACK ADAM. Chris Morgan, the writer assigned to the screenplay, made most of his bones writing for the FAST AND FURIOUS franchise, including the Johnson-centric HOBBS AND SHAW. So there wasn't much chance of seeing anything here but routine Dwayne Johnson antics.                                                                        

Beyond the expected meretriciousness of the Xmas-themed content, RED compounds its badness by building its story around that almost exhausted trope: "allies who start out despising each other but end up being buddies." Johnson plays Callum Drift, a bodyguard who's implied to be a colossal elf of some sort. Callum provides security for The Real and For True Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) whenever Santa ventures amid human beings. It's a boring job and Callum plans to retire soon, but then, for the first time as far as the script tells us, real peril intrudes upon Santa's North Pole home, and he's kidnapped. Callum's allies track down one of the men responsible for Santa's abduction, and they interrogate him. This is Callum's "future buddy" Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans), a cyber-hacker who had no idea he was getting mixed up in matters mythical. For the usual reasons, Callum can't just pump Jack for everything he knows about the kidnappers. Instead, Jack, a deadbeat dad who constantly disappoints his middle-schooler kid, has to work directly with Callum to track down the malefactors, and the two heroes eventually bond after initially hating-- ZZZZZZZZ.                                                                                                                                                                                 One of the sloppiest aspects of RED is that it doesn't just stick to aspects of the Santa myth. First, even though Santa doesn't appear to be in sustained danger before the kidnapping, Callum reports to a division with the acronym ELF. Hah hah. But then there's a greater organization called MORA, commanded by Zoe (Lucy Liu), which monitors the interactions of humankind and "mythological beings," of which Santa is presumably one, and these are the MI-6-like allies who provide Callum and Jack with whatever intel or equipment they need during their assorted peregrinations. (It does without saying that as important as it is to save Santa so that Christmas can occur on schedule, only two agents can be assigned to the job.) Eventually the mismatched pair learns that the culprit is Gryla the Christmas Witch (Kiernan Shipka). She's the ex-lover of Santa's brother Krampus, who preferred doling out punishments to naughty kids more than presents to nice ones. Callum and Jack have to fight Krampus to make their way to Gryla, who plans to use Santa in a massive plan to confer permanent punishment upon the naughty.                                                                                                       

The Garcia-Morgan script is needlessly complicated, probably for no purpose but to burn up run-time. Given that Krampus is already known for incarnating the "punishment nature" that appears in many iterations of Santa Claus, why not just make Krampus the villain? There have been a handful of Santa-stories where he's opposed by some witchy figure, but Gryla has no backstory of her own and lacks any good motive for her actions. In addition, actress Shipka is totally out of her depth playing a master villain, and her slight build makes her brief end-fight with Callum and Jack look a little silly. MORA is also overcomplicated, probably because the threat to Santa comes out of nowhere. Yet, aside from a brief appearance by Washington Irving's Headless Horseman, the audience doesn't see any mythical beings aside from those assorted with the Santa-mythology. The Horseman's appearance does make RED a very minor crossover-film by the way, though kids would get better crossover-fodder in a movie like 2012's RISE OF THE GUARDIANS. The "fighting femme" content is pretty miserable apart from the villain, too. I suppose someone in production squeezed in one snippet of Liu fighting bad guys as a sop to old CHARLIE'S ANGELS fans, but they almost might as well not have bothered.                                             

       
 Does Santa get rescued and make his magical flight? Does deadbeat dad manage to mend fences with his son? There are no surprises here, though I did like one quick scene where an evil snowman-creature throws a shuriken at Callum-- and the weapon is shaped like a pretty little snowflake.