Red One is no Hallmark movie

This week’s offering is Red One, a Christmas-themed action flick starring two of today’s top action stars – The Rock and Chris Evans. Okay, I’ll openly admit it….the Average Dude is a sucker for 3 movie categories. 1. Dog Movies 2. Kevin Costner Movies and 3. Christmas Movies.

The first – needs no defense. 2. I’m not saying they’re all great, or even all good. But I’ll go on the record as saying I liked Waterworld. I liked The Postman. I said what I said. 3. I’m excluding the whole Hallmark movie sub-catagory. I don’t do Hallmark. Or Hallmark adjacent. Not bagging on them. I think those movies have the same attraction for folks who are more prone to emotional content as action movies have for yours truly. Your thing is your thing.

Santa for the Terminator Generation

Red One puts a very high tech, macho @$$-kicking slant on the traditional Christmas ethos. Santa (played by the always awesome J K Simmons) is a lean, buff, spry elder saint who crushes it in the gym, dashes across rooftops and swings from rappelling ropes like a superhero. Not the traditional ‘bowl full of jelly’, for sure. But also not for nothing. This Santa doesn’t rely solely on magic to pull off the Christmas miracle. No, Saint Nick gotta be peak Santa on December 24th to pull it all off. I get it. The Average Dude abides.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

As the trailer tells us, Santa (code named Red One) gets abducted by the nefarious forces of Grylla, the Christmas Witch. The bad guys are equally tech savvy and motivated by their own very different world-view. Where Santacrats are driven by kindness and childlike compassion, the Grylacans are all about the inherent evil of all people and, as such, need to be punished. I know, that sounds really twisted but so are the times we are living in. I find myself wondering if that is on purpose or just an extension of today’s society? But I digress…

I’m too old to use the word rizz

In an effort to rescue Santa and save Christmas, Santa’s Security Chief Callum Drift (Rock) enlists the unwilling aid of Level 4 naughty lister Jack O’Malley (Evans), a high-tech finder of people. It’s a very Rush Hour kind of team up that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. It’s as if the insane amounts of charisma are at war with one another and the result sometimes cancel each other out. Charisma overload.

An observation worthy of its own column

Speaking of charisma…I’ve come to notice this about Wayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson…he is a human avatar of gravitas. Everything he says and does carries a solemn, purposeful intent. He is 100% self-assured. So, when he makes his speech about the necessity and purpose of Santa, it carries that very air of unquestionable truth. Yeah, I know…sounds pretty silly. But when the Rock speaks, people listen. All of his characters exude righteous authority. And though we know it’s pure childish fantasy, there’s a little piece of us that still wishes it were so. Or maybe we just want to believe there is something left in this world that is still pure. I’ll have to think on it.

To tie it all up and put a big bow on it

In the end, Red One gets a very passable 3.6 out of 5 from the Average Dude. This movie is never going to be on the annual Christmas Nice List as a Must Watch like Elf, Scrooged, Jim Carrey’s Grinch or the Griswolds. But was it worth a Saturday night big screen? Absolutely. The story was new, the action sequences were cool and the stars shone when they weren’t stepping on each other. Sure, the villain was about as threatening as last year’s fruitcake on the buffet table. But everyone else was on point (I want to see a Krampus spin-off). So take the grandkids, get the large corn and enjoy Red One. Mr & Mrs Average Dude did.

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Agatha All Along was Marvel?

Your usually humble Average Dude can boast that he knows a great deal about Marvel, having spent hours in the pages of comics as a kid. And with the exception of Madame Web (still holding the line), I’ve watched all the MCU content. Some of Marvel | Television offerings were pretty good. GotG Christmas Special. Werewolf By Night. WandaVision. Loki. Some were bad, even awful. Ms. Marvel. Secret Invasion. And, of course, the steaming pile of soggy wokeshite, She-Hulk.

I think there were others, I’m not sure.

Then, there is Agatha All Along. Sometimes called Agatha Darkhold Diaries. Or Agatha Coven of Chaos. Agatha All Along is the spin-off of WandaVision, where we first learned that Agatha Harkness, the whacky neighbor, was a dark witch intent on stealing Wanda’s Darkhold magical energies. In the end, our Scarlet Witch outsmarted the wiley elder-sorceress, stripped her of her own magic (and memories) and imprisoned her in the town of Westview. All that happened in 2021, so if I just spoiled anything, it’s on you. You had your chance.

There can be only one

The online community has had a lot to say about this latest MCU content. I’ve yet to see anything overly positive. Some, like Doomcock (Overlord DVD on YouTube), hated it so much that he put it ahead of the Acolyte in his pantheon of despised Disney content. THAT is a bold claim that your Average Dude just cannot concur with. For pure poop-trash, the Acolyte stands alone.

In fairness to Doomcock

Doomcock openly admits that his disgust of Agatha All Along may be tainted by his own personal biases, and I commend his honesty. And in his defense, isn’t that indemic of all reviewers? No defense of this is necessary, oh future ruler of earth.

Also in defense of Doomcock, he didn’t TOTALLY hate it. He openly admits a creepy, lusty fascination with Aubrey Plaza and spent more than a brief moment declaring this to his followers. Ummm…okay. Maybe too much honesty here? Especially from a nom de guerre like Doomcock? Just saying.

But back on point

Even with Doomcock, Nerdrotic and my favorire Critical Drinker all declaring their contempt, boredom or outright disgust of Agatha All Along, your Average Dude must, in all honesty, say that I didn’t hate it. Was it the MOST gay Marvel show ever? Yes, I think it clearly was. They ham-handledly announced William’s preferences right from the start and seemed to be written as cliche as possible. Also, in a later episode, William, played by teen actor Joe Locke, saw a scene where he kissed his boyfriend with…uh,…vigor, let’s say.

As for the women of this show, there was a subtle (and at times, not so subtle) undertone of scissor-hood. On that, I’ll say no more. None of these scenes were critical to the plot and were clearly there to attract (or possibly placate) a particular demograph. And that was really annoying, if I’m being totally honest.

Marvel All Along?

Even after all of that, I still didn’t hate Agatha All Along. It was moderately paced. It didn’t try to do too much. It had character development. Was there more to like than to dislike? Mmmm, that might be too much. Maybe there was just not much to actually hate. Mrs Average Dude and I would queue it up every Wednesday after dinner. I think we are still riding the MCU loyalty, hoping for something good again. And when compared to other Marvel | Television failures of the last few years, Agatha All Along just wasn’t horrible. Not a high bar, for sure. But there it is.

Kathryn Hahn did a serviceable job in the title role, as did her supporting cast. I thought Joe Locke as ‘William’ was pretty wimpy and annoying. I suspect that casual Marvel watchers had no idea of the big finale reveal. Your Average Dude figured it out from the first episode and knew how intrinsic he was to future Marvel productions. That knowledge was all that connected this story to the whole of the MCU. Other than that, it was a very milquetoast witches tale.

It could be just good timing in that there is precious little worth watching other than the Penguin (a gift from Marvel’s Distinguished Competition). So…I’m giving Agatha All Along a very middle of the witches road 3 out of 5. It did have some nice outro music (Donovan, the Cure, Billy Eilish and the great Jim Croce). At the end of that road, there will be very little impact on the future of the MCU and even less to remember. It was a serviceable time passer.

Maybe I’ll watch Deadpool and Wolverine again.

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