Red One Review: Fun, but why so scared of color & lights?
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
The poster for Christmas themed action-comedy-fantasy film ‘Red One’ is a vibrant one, it’s got all the red-green hues of the festive season, promising to be a fun family flick. And while it did turn out to be pretty entertaining, I couldn’t help but keep asking through the runtime – ‘why are the creators so afraid of color and lights?’. Since I was streaming the movie on Amazon Prime, at one point, I began to wonder if the problem was with television, but somewhere in the middle of the plot, Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans visit the island nation Aruba, their mission takes place in the day, you can see all the colors and natural lights of their beach-y destination, and you know it’s not the television’s fault.
Created by Jake Kasdan (director), Chris Morgan (writer), and Hiram Garcia (writer), ‘Red One’ stars J.K. Simmons as Saint Nicholas AKA Santa Claus, who gets kidnapped hours before Christmas, so Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), his head-of-security is forced to team up with Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), a notorious freelancer cyber mercenary who doesn’t believe in Santa, to save Christmas.
In a deviation of traditional re-imaginings, J.K. Simmons as Santa is old but super-fit, with an elaborate personal gym for daily works outs, which was a nice little twist. Chris Evans plays the jaded Jack O’Malley with his usual onscreen charm, a not-so-nice guy, slightly reminiscent of his cocky capitalistic character from “Pain Hustlers”. Jack in ‘Red One’ will simply work for the ‘highest bidder’, that’s all it takes to hire him. Kiernan Shipka plays the primary villain in the tale, the one who kidnaps Santa for her own nefarious reasons. Lucy Liu is Zoe, the leader of a mysterious undercover organization that’s in-charge of protecting the mythical world, so she gets to play boss to Callum and Jack’s mission to rescue Santa.
The cinematography for a film like this should have been the absolute highlight. However, despite a star-studded cast, the visual effects and an overly dark palette were major disappointments. Santa’s secret town at the North Pole should have resembled a glittery, magical wonderland straight out of a Disney movie. Instead, its aesthetics evoke the dreary Gotham City from DC Comics. This might, of course, be an attempt to obscure some of the CGI weaknesses, as the story is filled with mythical characters.
That said, one of the strengths of Red One lies in its inclusion of two intriguing mythological figures in addition to Santa Claus – two characters rooted in European folklore. To keep this review spoiler-free, I won’t reveal their identities, but one of them is played by Kiernan Shipka. This means Jack and Callum Drift aren’t up against ordinary human kidnappers but face formidable, supernatural villains.
The two-hour runtime is, admittedly, a tad too long for a Christmas-action-comedy. Some trimming would have improved the pacing. Nevertheless, this is an entertaining film within its genre. My biggest gripe remains the lackluster color palette and the often dull tones of the film. A bit more Christmas cheer and sharper special effects could have transformed it into a true visual treat.
Rating: 6 on 10. Watch ‘Red One’ on Prime Video.
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