There’s a lot of ambition behind Amazon MGM’s action-adventure Christmas movie ‘Red One’, to start with. As the movie tells the story of Santa Claus in a rather modern light, twisting the character into a bodybuilder, the movie sure has a lot of plot holes. And the shift in imagery surrounding the movie has gotten mixed reviews considering everything else around Santa is rather normal. Yet from what has been shown, ‘Red One’ does seem to a. have an overly complicated universe design that lacks a cohesive structure to it. And while wanting to create a new cinematic universe is commendable, it will put you at risk of oversaturation.
But it doesn’t end there, be it an A-list cast or phenomenal visuals, all have their merit to the growing amount of polarizing reception the movie has been getting. And this is where the theme of the plot takes a severe hit to its credibility. It goes to show how external elements can impact the final design in unwanted ways. Everything ‘Red One’ has its assuming elements for how it attempts to piece things together visually is commendable. But it surely was no means perfect for the time period.
In the very beginning that is “Red One,” There is a lot of entertainment brought to the viewer through the pure novelty of how they remotely modernized the very basics of established characters even if at times it can make the viewer laugh unintentionally. There is this scene that shows a fighter jet escorting Santa and the reindeer from Philadelphia to the Pole. ( It’s Santa but in a whole new fashion: with the strong backing of the military-industrial complex). The chiseled figure of a Saint Nick equals present delivering with muscle power and skill; gift memorabilia cannot be done without the accompaniment of constant choreography, drills, and logistical planning throughout 364 days in a year for the entire endeavor to go smoothly.
Considering the shift in the size of people placed on Santa’s naughty list Callum Drift who happens to be the head of North Pole Security confides to Santa telling him he planned to call it quits after this Christmas run, for he has forever been put off in believing in their mission. However, widely known hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) mediating sells info that gives up Santa’s location in the North Pole and a bunch of enforcers as a result snatch tannin.
They are under the mentors of Grýla (Kiernan Shipka), the winter witch, who believes that Kris Kringle is weak and intends to devise a plan to suck his magic and encase all people in the Wrong List in enchanted snow globes. Jack and Callum join hands with each other, albeit for a while, and look for Santa in a bid to stop Grýla from succeeding in her unabashed being of a Christmas-less world.
There’s nuance to the way Johnson depicts Callum as someone with doubts when there’s unfiltered devotion for the “god” who’s at his service. But it is done with a degree of pretentiousness that completely beats the purpose of the chills “Red One” seeks to conjure. He is doing his best Father Toller from the movie First Reformed, a character that has been around for over a century and has seen way too many Grinches coming up and winning. There is an opportunity to understand why a former Callum may be encouraged to go for the easy way out in a Grýla and the same way against Santa fighters. Even so, the movie lacks a certain emotional depth and a fair amount of faith in the characters that would enable them to be more than what we want them to be.
This show doesn’t even need Santa’s evil brother breaking apart a Robosock ’em Robot to showcase the consequences of wasting capitalism. The show is only two hours long and there was no need to devote almost half their runtime towards explaining Callum’s disenchantment, If anything, the fabricated worldview of all evil is stuffed with kindness, which is extremely more honest to capitalism.
In this particular role, Evans presents as an earlier draft of the character he is portraying in “Knives Out”, while there is less swearing going on realistically I still don’t grasp the dynamics between him and Johnson. This can only account for two types of cynical characters in this story that refuse to cooperate while working towards accomplishing a goal. And unlike the typical best buddy cop movie, there is barely any space for either of the protagonists to showcase any other side to their character or aid in developing each other’s roles. Furthermore, after watching Lucy Liu, who portrays the director of MORA, pull off some outstanding acting in the recently released movie ‘Presence’, it is sad to see her slack off in this movie having to bark a few orders or perform a few fighting scenes instead.
If your action-adventure film lacks action, it’s a huge issue in the first place, while those fight scenes that had to sell the movie end up being the least pleasant element. Consider the film’s first significant action scene: Grýla’s shapeshifting henchmen abduct Santa, and Callum pursues them during a nighttime snowstorm. The way Kasdan and cinematographer Dan Mindel cover the action is badly cut and so poorly lit that no one clearly knows what is happening; it’s a disgusting mess. Strangely enough, it is during the less grandiose parts of the movie that Michael Callum and Kristofer Hivju’s character, Krampus, play the ‘Krampusschlap’, where they take turns slapping each other in the face until one of them is unconscious, that the kinetic excitement hailed during the larger action sequences is absent.
This is how these fights appear: as though they did take place. At least Johnson and Hivju seem to have been in the same room rather than being digital scans of actors being pulled around a screen by VFX artists, which on some level makes more sense
While Red One seems to want to engage with the far more alluring prospects of grieving, the film never does manage to coalesce into an emotional narrative that has both depth and intrigue. Simmons’ Santa spends the majority of the movie nearly unconscious, which is how I too want to enjoy this film. But I concede that after he gets captured, the thrill of watching him grow fainter and fainter throughout the movie would be surreal.
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