RED ONE is not a prequel to THE BIG RED ONE or READY PLAYER ONE, but in fact a Christmas fantasy action movie produced by Amazon Product Corporation and starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Chris Formerly Captain America Evans. It has made around $180 million in theaters but is considered a flop because it cost something like $250 million before marketing. I have seen many holding it up as an example of the worst fucking crap imaginable. “Slop,” if you will.

I don’t have a high opinion of most of the recent artistic choices of the named parties, so I didn’t rush out to see it. But now I have seen it on Amazon’s streaming/package delivery service (it’s already on there) and it is my duty to report that I liked it. This is a genuinely funny movie! That is not something I expect out of Dwayne T.R. Johnson in the year 2024.

If you read entertainment news you might know that The Rock has been on a tear saying his usual corporate-brain-damaged franchise salesman nonsense about RED ONE. My favorite is when he saw OPPENHEIMER in the specific Imax theater and seat that Christopher Nolan screens them in and said “RED ONE on this screen and with this technology could be game over.” And yet somehow the actual movie indicates that he still has some good impulses left. I was ahead of the curve on Roxit (abandoning The Rock) – to me the problem is that he found out he could be Funny The Rock, so he started doing feature length skits masquerading as movies, joking around more than playing characters. I did not think he had the discipline to let go of that crutch, but he proved me wrong when it mattered most: the movie that has to pretend to be totally serious to be funny.

I will stop rebutting hypothetical haters shortly, but this is where I’ve seen people either being disingenuous or humorless: they act like they don’t get that a big flashy action movie about a bodyguard from an organization called E.L.F. teaming up with a hacker/thief to rescue Santa Claus from kidnappers is meant to be absurd. There are a few jokey scenes, but thankfully 90% of it follows the ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER or PRIDE + PREJUDICE + ZOMBIES ethic of being funny by executing the ludicrous concept as if in good faith, without winking or nudging. Evans’ character does make jokes, but the same type of jokes he would make as the cynical partner in a normal action movie where there’s not a buff upright polar bear in tactical gear named Garcia (Reinaldo Faberlie, “Large Guerrilla,” THE SUICIDE SQUAD).

It’s SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE meets OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN. In this world, Santa (J.K. Simmons, FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME) likes to do mall appearances to stay connected with the people, but it’s like a presidential visit, they have the bullet proof limo, security detail, fighter jet and everything. The Rock’s character Callum Drift (great name) works closest with Santa, is his weightlifting spotter, etc., and Santa is disappointed that he’s hanging it up after this Christmas. He’s become disillusioned with the state of grown ups. “We’re up almost 22% year over year. For the first time ever, more people are on the naughty list than not. And it’s like they don’t even care.” (Somehow this movie predicted Trump was gonna win.)

The North Pole in this movie is not what we’ve seen before. It’s a full on magical polar metropolis. Santa’s original cozy cottage is fenced off as a historical landmark that Callum looks at to remember where it all began. Now Santa lives in a sleek tower fortress, but that doesn’t stop the unthinkable from happening on Christmas Eve: a black ops team breaks in and abducts him.

Callum gives chase but they escape through a breach in “The Dome” that makes the whole area invisible. His boss, Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority director Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS) is able to trace the incident to Jack O’Malley (Evans, SNOWPIERCER), a “level 4 naughty lister” who was paid to hack the intercontinental seismic surveillance system to, he thought, “find someone who was running tests on some weapons systems in the Arctic.” Zoe forces him to work with Callum to find the kidnappers, so it’s kind of a 48 HOURS situation, except Nick Nolte didn’t have the power to travel via portals in the back of toy stores or Hot Wheels blown up to human size.

Evans does some kind of east coast accent, as if he agrees with me that Chris Hemsworth surpassed him as the best Chris when he did BLACKHAT. He does make some comments about the craziness of the premise, but not wacky riffing, and everybody stares at him blankly like he’s an asshole. Meanwhile, he has a subplot that’s standard for both action and Christmas movies – he’s a fuck up who has disappointed his son Dylan (Wesley Kimmel, The Mandalorian) and learns to do better. In this version that happens after they both get trapped in magical snow globes. Also of course he will win Callum’s respect by being less selfish than expected.

Their mission brings them face to face with Santa’s dangerous brother Krampus (Kristofer Hivju [Game of Thrones] in makeup created by Joel Harlow [PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN series, THE TOXIC AVENGER PARTs II and III]), who lives in a palace surrounded by tough guy hangers on like Jabba the Hutt and does not take kindly to their visit. But the culprit is actually the shapeshifting Christmas witch Grýla (Kiernan Shipka, LONGLEGS), who has a fascist plan to condemn everyone on the naughty list (not counting herself and her movement, one would guess).

The plot comes together more elegantly than in some of the serious blockbusters, honestly, but it’s really an engine for finding goofy ways to combine Santa Claus shit with big budget action. There is, of course, a high speed sled chase, plus a flying reindeer action setpiece. There’s a “your foster parents are dead” moment (having to do with which kinds of cookies Santa doesn’t like) and a part where Callum says “The North Pole has been taken.” The Rock says it so perfectly I had to rewind it and watch it again. You have all your funny little details like Callum’s red and green leather jacket, the hydroponic mistletoe greenhouse, and the holographic globe display that maps out who’s sleeping and awake. Bonnie Hunt (BEETHOVEN) plays Mrs. Claus more like the First Lady. I think it would be really easy to do this stuff too broad, so I’m really impressed how much of it they got exactly right.

One of the more inspired ideas is when they’re on a beach and an ice cream truck pulls up and three snowman thugs climb out to fight them. The idea of muscular snowmen is so funny to me, and they find a way to make a bowler hat and a corncob pipe look like some kind of macho Peaky Blinders type style. Also one of them uses a snowflake-shaped ice throwing star.

It’s truly a great use of CG technology. JURASSIC PARK hatched so burly snow hooligans could glisten.

This is kind of a similar idea to last year’s VIOLENT NIGHT, which combined a DIE HARD ripoff scenario with Santa Claus fantasy and other Christmas movie themes. That was the hard-R and medium budget version – meaner, gorier, more contained and economically responsible, and more geared toward the type of action I prefer (one-on-one fights choreographed by 87Eleven). But if forced at the point of a sharpened candy cane to choose the best of the recent Santa Claus action movies I’m afraid RED ONE has the edge. Part of that is that VIOLENT NIGHT is a traditional comedy with a cast of wacky characters making jokes. RED ONE’s mostly deadpan approach is more my speed of humor. But also both of them try to do the sweet holiday message that would be in a normal Christmas movie, and that part feels a little off in VIOLENT NIGHT since it’s intentionally populated with rich fuckfaces who do very little to earn their happy ending.

On the other hand this one probly comes from the more evil corporation, so I’m glad if they lost money on it. Hopefully they’ll make a sequel with twice the budget and even poorer reception. RED ONE part one is directed by Jake Kasdan (ZERO EFFECT, WALK HARD) and written by Chris Morgan (FAST AND FURIOUS 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and HOBBS & SHAW), and that seems to be a pretty good combination for well-executed ridiculousness.

Regardless of the movie, merry Christmas and/or Wednesday everybody. I hope it’s a good one for you.