Riot’s Reviews: Red One
It’s the most wonderful time of the year once again boys and girls! And with the wintery season comes a new hopeful contender for a memorable Christmas movie. This genre is certainly one of the more difficult to get right, mainly for one reason in particular: a good Christmas movie needs to be rewatchable. Most people (I would argue) have a single title in mind that serves as the answer to this statement: “It’s not Christmas until I watch…” Many can’t wait to see Hans Gruber fall from Nakatomi Plaza. Others can’t wait to hear a bell ring and see and angel get its wings. For this household, it’s just not Christmas until we watch Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye singing “Sisters” while we wrap the presents. These films tend to reinvoke the feelings of kindness and giving, simultaneously stirring up nostalgia and reinvigorating the spirit of the season. It’s a lot to ask for in a film, but I think it inherently comes with the territory of the Christmas genre. This years’ entry, Red One picked up some blockbuster actors and put out advertising that promised a humorous and quirky adventure, but would star power be enough to make this film a yearly event?
Man, I honestly don’t know on this one. The answer is complicated for a number of reasons and it’s not as easily broken down like I normally do with “good” and “bad” aspects. The reason for this is that some of the issues are kind of subjective. For instance, as one might expect knowing that Dwayne Johnson is the lead; this is a very formulaic “The Rock” kind of movie. Personally, I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing. Having watched a lot of his films, there’s a couple of gems in there. Either way, you know what you’re getting out of a DJ movie. He’s going to be a big, brooding, talks more with his fists than his mouth character that is constantly undercut by a mouthy, renegade goofball like Ryan Reynolds, Seann William Scott, or in this case, Chris Evans. The point is, we’ve all seen this already but I would be lying if I said the formula didn’t work. It obviously does, otherwise studios wouldn’t keep making them.
Red One has a very strong, Christmas message and one that I really liked. It surprisingly opened up a much bigger internal debate about the nature of good and evil (in this case the naughty or nice list) but also maintained a really sweet premise about finding/remembering the inner child. How does this go wrong in some instances? There are some scenes that feel a little preachy and slightly ham fisted. The additional minutes messed with the pacing of the movie quite a bit and extended the showing a lot farther than it needed to be (you do feel just about every minute of its two hour run time). I’ve mentioned in reviews before that writers should be able to rely on their audiences to come to conclusions on their own, not having to be led literally every step of the way by dialogue and speeches. Still, the message is a good one, reminding the audience about the role that free will and agency play in the decision to choose good over evil. It’s an argument against determinism and the ability to change course at any time, not being victims to “destiny.” The choice can heal relationships and certainly does within the context of the story.
Messaging aside, I genuinely had a hard time figuring out who this movie was actually for. The patrons in the theater were a mixed bag and included quite a few very small children. As the movie progressed, it became very clear that this wasn’t an All Ages type of film and in that sense I think the previews were pretty misleading. Admittedly, I might be mentally stuck in a definition of PG-13 that doesn’t match up with my 90’s kid sensibilities. I will say I don’t know too many Christmas movies off the top of my head that prominently featured numerous monsters (although Gremlins is one of my all-time favorites). Sprinkle in some foul-language and sexual(ish) scenes and you get a movie that isn’t totally family friendly regardless of the family friendly themes. The premise of Santa being kidnapped isn’t great for kids, regardless of the intrigue, but even that bit was handled pretty tamely considering the content of the rest of the movie. It’s a fairly gritty adventure movie and like I mentioned previously, feels right within the vein of a typical DJ action flick. It has heart, comedy and lots of effects that should be entertaining to the youngins, but maintains an overall message that seems geared more to the adult audience, especially people that may need some help rediscovering the magic of Christmas.
Red One isn’t sloppy nor is it well defined. The cinematography jumps wildly from well shot intimate scenes, to blurry and out of focused, sometimes poorly CGI’d action sequences. I was particularly fond of the design and vision for the North Pole/Santa’s Workshop and kind of wished they spent more time there. But I was genuinely flabbergasted by the stark contrast of the good vs bad CGI in the film. While things like practical effects and costume design were pretty fantastic, performances were kind of all over the map. The best actor of the film (J. K. Simmons as Santa) was too sparsely featured meanwhile downright shaky performances (Lucy Liu) got too much screen time. I had fun watching this one and while I might grade rewatchability at maybe a C-, I could entertain an argument for a higher grade. I thought this was going to be a much worse film than it actually was, but it’s polarizing nature is sure to garner some strong disagreements from you dear readers. Riot recommends: give it a shot.
Riot’s Rating: 7.5/10: This one is probably best seen as an in-theater experience. If funds are tight, it could probably wait. But the movie is about paying homage to the inner child. I think if you relax and let your own come out, you’ll have a great time.
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