Red One (2024)
The Rock: Christmas Edition
Red One is what happens when dudes make Christmas movies for dudes. Literally from the writer of numerous Fast & the Furious movies, and script reviser of S.W.A.T. and Snakes on a Plane comes this… a Christmas movie for dudes who like action movies. Get the picture? The official synopsis: After Santa Claus is kidnapped, the North Pole's Head of Security must team up with a notorious hacker in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.
There’s J.K. Simmons as “Buff Santa,” Chris Evans playing way off what he used to do when he was Captain America, Lucy Liu in a rare star turn, and, of course, Dwayne Johnson playing the Christmassy version of himself. This movie basically takes a broad mix of Christmas traditions, lore, and standard movie tropes and gives them the action movie treatment.
Initially released in theatres in November 2024 (PLEASE tell me you did not pay movie theatre prices for this!) and followed a month later on Amazon Prime, this actually came out a year later than originally planned. Johnson supposedly insisted that this movie receive the full IMAX treatment, thinking it would be “game over” once people saw it as he intended. Well, the theatrical release failed to make back the movie’s investment, BUT in a weird silver lining way, it did generate over 50 million streams the first four days it was on Prime, so… I guess the whole IMAX thing was unnecessary, but evidently there is an audience for a Christmas action movie.
I’d be willing to bet the Venn diagram of dudes who like Red One and dudes who consider Die Hard a Christmas movie is a perfect circle.
You’ll like this if…
You’re a dude who like action movies. And especially if you think there isn’t enough Krampus on screen. And the giant reindeer were pretty cool.
