Movie Review: Red One [2024] - A Christmas-Themed Movie With Superhero Action Fun and Futuristic Impressions

0. Preface

It's been a while since I last wrote something about movies. It just so happens that I recently watched a Christmas-themed movie starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evan, J.K. Simmons, and Lucy Liu. When I first saw the trailer of this movie on YouTube, I said to myself, “I have to watch this.”

1. Synopsis

Did you know that Santa Claus is real? And that mythological creatures like Snowmen, Krampus, and Gryla the witch are as well? Wow! This is very interesting. Their existence with their own unique characters that have become stories across generations and across civilizations turns out to be under the supervision of an agency called MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority). Cool!!! Santa Clause is one of them, and Red One is his codename.

As we all know, Santa Claus always appears on Christmas Eve to spread gifts for children around the world. What if one night, close to Christmas, Santa was kidnapped? Of course there must be someone or a group of people to save Santa, or else, there would be NO CHRISTMAS.

^{Source: Dwayne Johnson's Instagram post.}

The story goes that Santa Claus (played by J. K. Simmons) was kidnapped from his compound. Callum Drift (played by Dwayne Johnson), his bodyguard, who moments earlier had resigned from his position but will still escort Santa one last time until Christmas which is just around the corner, immediately acts to thwart the kidnapping but he is unsuccessful.

The investigation leads to the conclusion that a famous hacker named Jack O'Malley (played by Chris Evans) is behind the kidnapping. To make matters worse, Jack was just doing satellite tracking and selling the results to someone he didn't know. He didn't even know that he was tracking Santa Claus. Eventually he is recruited by MORA to join Callum in bringing Santa home. In this adventure, they encounter mythological figures like Krampus, Gryla, and Snowman.

2. My Words

^{I love this creative fan-made poster as seen on impawards.com.}

But this movie is not just about adventure. Christmas films have always been known as family films, and Red One is no exception. In this movie, the human side of Jack and Callum as well as Krampus and Santa are explored. Through his adventures, Jack understands better things about his relationship with his son, Dylan (played by Wesley Kimmel), which is not positive and manages to mend it.

While Callum rediscovers his faded faith in humans and eventually rescinds his resignation. And, ah! I just found out, it turns out that Krampus has a lover, or at least, an ex-lover.

I found this movie to be quite entertaining mainly because it combines an interesting take on the classic popular theme of Christmas with a futuristic twist made possible by state-of-the-art special effects. From this movie, the aura of Christmas and superhero-style adventure combine to provide an entertaining spectacle.

Yes! It's a classic Christmas-themed movie, but with a futuristic twist and superhero-like adventure, which, like most Christmas movies, remains strong with messages of togetherness, friendship, and sacrifice.

3. Trailer

See official trailers below:

^{First offfficial trailer, embedded from YouTube, uploaded by the Amazon MGM Studios on June 25th.}

^{Second offfficial trailer, embedded from YouTube, uploaded by the Amazon MGM Studios on September 23rd.}

4. Interesting Facts About Red One

Some interesting facts about this movie:

In this movie, Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) and Chris Evan collaborated for the first time;
This Christmas movie is made in the style of a superhero movie, with decent humor;
The film's director, Jake Kasdan, has worked with Dwayne Johnson on the two smash hit films Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019);
The movie had a budget of US$250 million or Rp3.9 trillion. According to Variety, this is a huge budget for a holiday movie;
Red One was first released on November 6 in Ireland and the United Kingdom, followed on November 15 in the United States;
In its first week in theaters, Red One immediately displaced Venom: The Last Dance, a Marvel superhero movie produced by Columbia Pictures and friends, from the top of the box office;
Box Office Mojo reported on November 18 that Red One collected US$34 million or from 4,032 theaters that screened the film and immediately took the number one box office spot that week.

5. Ratings

IMDb : 6.5/10 from 64,120 users
Google Users: 89% likes
Rotten Tomatoes
- Tomatometer: 30% (169 reviews)
- Popcommenter (Audience Score): 90% (+5,000 verified ratings)
Metacritic
- Meta Score: 34% (35 critic reviews)
- User Score: 5.4 (Based on 150 User Ratings)

6. Closure

So in my opinion, for the year-end holidays, this movie is worth considering for family viewing. Yes, I recommend it. Have you seen this movie? What do you think about it? Do you like it?

Readings

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^{Picture created by @aneukpineung78}

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