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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