Review: Red One 2024 Movie

Good news for you all: Santa Claus really does exist! Bad news: Apparently Santa Claus is constantly in danger and needs round-the-clock personal protection. That's right, Santa Claus has a team of tough supernatural bodyguards and a secret paramilitary organization called MORA to protect him. Watch this movie on Flixhd Movie.

Protected from what? Well, not us mortals, that's for sure. From what we can see from the Red One, security at the North Pole seems impossible for average Muggles to get past. No, MORA stands for Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority, and it was their agents and paratroopers who were called in to help Santa Claus when he was kidnapped 24 hours before Christmas Eve.

So Santa Claus isn't the only real one, but all the other mythical creatures you've probably heard of before (I won't mention the ones mentioned here so as not to give anything away, because that would be more than this movie deserves) .. and one of them is now looking to harm Santa Claus or at least destroy Christmas, and many of them are up to no good on a regular basis (the sad joke of "arresting the usual suspects" is dropped). So this is necessary because we don't have 24/7 security for people who don't get targeted repeatedly.

The Red One JK Simmons Bonnie Hunt

Bonnie Hunt appears as Mrs. Claus. This is good. She's cool. I hope they pay her a lot.

Wait, what?

I said this before about a movie that assumes that Santa Claus actually exists and that he actually goes on a gift-giving spree around the world on Christmas Eve, but at the same time we are faced with adults trying to convince their children that Santa Claus actually exists. It's not like parents are putting presents under the tree (like in this picture). A world where Santa Claus is not a fantasy would look very different from the one we live in. And as far as I know, no movie (including this one) has ever dealt with this in earnest. But in this respect The Red One is even worse. It outlines a world where dark supernatural forces are also at work and have real power. It doesn't matter if a scary old elf can see where you sleep and know if you've been evil or not. He's one of the kindest of these magical creatures. That would be a horrible, horrible world to live in.

So, The Red One is a horror movie, but horror movies don't know it.

But this movie is even bolder. It's supposed to be a cute, light-hearted action comedy, but it's not. It's a very comedic Christmas, at best. "Red Man" is Santa's code name. Cool, right? *MASSIVE EYE ROLL* *ACAB*. You know, for kids! It elevates Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's muscle-bound bodyguard into a holiday-saving hero, with help from Lucy Liu as the military-inspired, somewhat X-Files-esque head of MORA. (Spoiler: there's not enough Liu here.) Johnson's not-very-human Callum is too old for this shit and has one last job with Santa before he retires -- trust me, we've exhausted the clichés -- and he teams up with Chris Evans' Jack, a human hacker tracker who inadvertently betrays Santa Claus and gets in the way of the evil villains who are after him, and now has to save old St. Nick -- and, naturally, to free himself from his sarcastic frustration.

The Red One Chris Evans Lucy Liu

But the clichéd salvation doesn't actually happen! (Though, oddly enough, the movie seems to believe that for some reason.) Evans seems determined to squander all the cinematic sympathy he generated from his brilliant portrayal of Captain America in the Marvel film series, even to mention what he was wearing. The chunky sweater from Knives Out had him standing there screaming "Oh my God!" and "Oh my God!" while performing magic. He encounters creature after creature that challenges his reality, but it doesn't seem to move him one bit. If he does learn the true meaning of Christmas, the lazy, incompetent script by Fast & Furious veteran Chris Morgan and newcomer Hiram Garcia fails to express it. But he ends up hugging his estranged teenage son or something.

The movie can't even convincingly convey its cheesy sentimentality.

But that's not the worst thing here! The cast is great on paper, but Johnson (Free Guy, Jungle Cruise) and Evans (Don't Look Up, Avengers: Endgame) have absolutely no chemistry. The movie desperately needs some reluctant buddy comedy, and it's missing here. The great J.K. Simmons(!) (21 Bridges, The Front Runner) plays Santa Claus, but like the great Liu (The Legend of the Princess Kaguya, Kung Fu Panda 2), he doesn't have enough presence. And just when you think the movie's supposed muscle-bound Kris Kringle, in The Rock we see him lifting weights – maybe in a better position to strike back at his captors, well, yeah, that doesn't apply either. A waste of a great cast.

Red One Kristofer Hivju Dwayne Johnson

If Krampus is the funniest guy in a Christmas movie that's supposed to be cute... I don't know, maybe you should rethink your life choices.