Christmas is right around the corner which of course means there are new Christmas movies coming out in your theaters. One movie that has already come out this Christmas season is “Red One” starring Dwyane Johnson and Chris Evans.
“Red One” takes place two days before Christmas when Santa is kidnapped and E.L.F (Extremely Large and Formidable) has to get Santa back to the North Pole before there is no Christmas. E.L.F joins forces with Jack O’Malley, the world’s most secretive hacker, to get Santa back before it’s too late.
Dwyane Johnson, also known as The Rock, plays Callum Drift, an E.L.F and head of security at the North Pole and therefore one of the first lines of defense to protect santa. Johnson has also starred in movies like “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” which give off the same type of role he plays in “Red One,” all three showing his charisma and athleticism.
Evans plays the role of Jack O’Malley, one of America’s best hackers, who is a “level-4 naughty lister.” O’Malley is forced by Zoe,head of the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (played by Lucy Lui), to join forces with the E.L.Fs to find Santa since he had gotten Santa into this mess by helping the kidnapper find where Santa was.
Johnson wore the E.L.F uniform most of the movie which is a red and green jacket with red pants and black combat boots while Evans wore more casual winter clothes, jeans and a button up shirt with a brown coat over it. I think these were great choices to match the characters because Johnson is in green and red which are classic Christmas colors and is in uniform to show who he is and what he does while Evans is playing as a normal middle aged man and that’s just a basic outfit that men would wear on a normal basis.
They put a bunch of different ideas from other Christmas movies into one, like the mythical creatures Grýla and Krampus, which made the plot of the story more interesting and led to more ideas in the movie like going to Germany and breaking into the Krampus’s lair.
Krampus is played by Kristofer Hivju who is a great actor choice because Hivju has a Norwegian accent which is perfect for Krampus since his origin is from Germany and the accents are similar.
This is a movie that can make the whole family laugh. It is rated PG-13, so there is some swearing and violence, so be aware of letting a younger audience watch this movie. Red one is also one of the first Christmas movies to be in theaters since the pandemic struck in 2020 which I think could start to get movie companies to start putting more christmas movies into theaters if this one does well.
With the actors that were chosen for this movie, I do believe they could have made it funnier than it already was. It was still entertaining, but they could have added a little more to have people laughing during more scenes during the movie. They could have made a lot more jokes between Johnson and Evans while they were “fighting”.
The “Red One” music supervisors chose a lot of classic and well known Christmas music throughout the movie like “Here Comes Santa Claus” by Ray Conniff, “Winter Wonderland” by Roland Kaiser, and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Mariah Carey which I think were great choices for this movie, they had chosen classic Christmas songs that everyone knows and loves.
Overall, I would definitely put “Red One” on the watch list for this Christmas season. It was a heartwarming movie while also being funny and having an amazing cast, costumes, music and plot.
