Red One is the worst Christmas movie ever made

Red One is a terrible film. It's ugly, cynical, distasteful, and it has a bizarre fixation with toxic masculinity and the military that has no place in a Christmas story. It's smug when it should be sincere, and like most Dwayne Johnson products today, it feels like an advertisement for an actor who can't quite figure out why everyone doesn't love him.

Johnson plays Callum Drift, the head of ELF (but not an elf, the film goes out of its way to point out). He's essentially an enforcer and global secret agent for Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons), who runs the logistics and safety of the North Pole. But he's also grown sick with the job, because more people than ever are on the naughty list. He can't see their inner child anymore. On the eve of his resignation, Santa is kidnapped by the winter witch Gryla (Kiernan Shipka), leaving Drift to partner with the perpetual naughty kid Jack (Chris Evans) so they can save Christmas.

The plot is a collection of busywork and loosely dangling set pieces, none of which are interesting or fun. Johnson and Evans bicker their way through increasingly dull obstacles, and it's supposed to be charming, yet comes off like an early draft of a buddy comedy that never found its footing. The problem, once again, is Johnson, who adamantly refuses to be in on the joke. He has to be The Big Tough Guy, the hero, the one that everyone fawns over no matter what. So we get product placement for his booze in a kids film, he spots Santa at the gym, and there's even a line about just how much he fucks.

Compare that to Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom Johnson emulates the most, and it's like night and day. Even at his worst, Arnold knew he was the top dog, so it didn't matter if he was the butt of the joke or not. The audiences were there for him, and they would sit through anything because they knew he'd come through in the end.

Because there's so little else in the film, Red One left me wondering about the other unsavory aspects. Like how happy it is to embrace military jingoism and American exceptionalism. Santa travels with a fighter escort. He's protected by a shadowy agency that's totally not the CIA even though it is. There's a scene where said organization sends an assault squad to capture Evans, including breaking into his home with tasers and torturing him during interrogation in a bit that's played for laughs. When Evans points out that he was tasered, The Director (Lucy Liu), casually gives the weapon a redefined name. One can't help but remember enhanced interrogation tactics.

Elsewhere, Santa and Johnson compare their masculinity. Evans and his son admire Santa's physique and virility. There's a whole slew of misogynist gags about how women are inherently witches. Except for Mrs. Santa, who bakes cookies like the greatest trad wife ever. It's ugly, mean, and thoroughly off-putting. Which doesn't even get into the implications of Santa's military-sanctioned antics and the insincere message that he, as American as apple pie, is here to believe in everyone and to make the world a happier place. Something tells me the countries where the American military delivers bombs to aren't celebrating the same way.

The action isn't fun, the effects are bland, and apart from a surprisingly lively bit part from Kristofer Hivju, there's little in Red One that makes it even an interesting failure.

It's a film so bereft of genuine emotion that I can't imagine even the most desperate Christmas fans getting anything out of it. Why bother scaring kids with lumps of coal when the alternative is to make them sit through this mess?