Red One

After an absolutely horrendous week that left me feeling gutted and the holidays barreling down upon us, I needed a mind cleanser. So, I made the rare decision to hit my local theater over the weekend.  Opting to rip the holiday band-aid off early I checked out Red One’s early access release. Starring Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson, Red One is the newest film from Amazon, originally intended to be released on streaming,  

I went into this one with no expectations and while I wasn’t blown away, I did find the film enjoyable, nonetheless. 

The pacing is slow at the beginning, and I feel they really dragged out the who/what aspect of the plot much longer than necessary for my tastes, but the storyline is there and works. The dialogue and some of the acting is a bit on the “meh” side and is hard to get past and the two-hour three-minute runtime definitely felt longer. 

While watching Red One there’s quite a bit that’s cut and paste from various other films, but the packaging with Evans and Johnson makes for a fun watch. Added bonus of good, if underutilized casting with J.K. Simmons (wanted so much more of him), Lucy Liu, Bonnie Hunt, and Kristofer Hivju. 

The humor isn’t rib tickling but is solid. Some of the CGI work gets a bit messy here and there but is easy enough to ignore.

The biggest and brightest aspect of Red One for me is all the behind-the-scenes, technical aspects, and imagination of how Santa and the North Pole operations really work. The creativity and execution are joyous.

Speaking of joyous. The theater was packed with a good mix of young kids (even a baby) up through grandparents. All were engaged and no one seemed fussy or bored.  The elderly woman sitting next to me was laughing, clapping, and bouncing with joy. Seeing her reaction made me happy.

I personally wasn’t as enamored with Red One, but that may just be me being in a funk personally. It’s generic and derivative, but appealing. Not necessarily a need to see in the theater film, but a I don’t regret having done so film. Make sense? Ultimately, Red One has it flaws. But it also has enough pluses, so it isn’t a total waste of time.

Red One gets a 6.5 from me.

#RedOne