At some point, the logistical difficulties involved in delivering presents to every single Christmas-celebrating house in the world every Christmas Eve occurs to most kids as they come to terms with the Santa Claus tradition. This literalism has already been the comedic basis for at least one children’s movie, the excellent and somewhat neglected Arthur Christmas back in 2011; now it’s the backdrop for Red One, a behind-the-scenes peek at North Pole problems, directed by Jake Kasdan from a script by Chris Morgan.
Santa (J.K. Simmons) gets abducted by Naughty List hard-liners led by the wintry witch Gryla (Kiernan Shipka, who somehow recalls Greta Thunberg). His head of security Callum Drift (Duane Johnson), supervised by Lucy Liu as the head of the agency in charge of protecting mythological beings, must rescue St. Nick with less than 24 hours until his sleigh is set to take off.
A weaselly small-time hacker (Chris Evans) from the mortal world, who unknowingly assisted the kidnappers, gets pulled into the investigation as well; this guy has a son (Wesley Kimmel) from an earlier relationship that he neglects. If only something would happen in his life to help redeem his character.
Despite standard Christmas-movie plot points like this, Red One is, really, less a Christmas flick and more a send-up of high-tech action pictures in the Bourne or Mission: Impossible style. It’s wildly overproduced blockbuster silliness, but with some genuine witty imagination. Nonchalantly presented characters like talking polar bears or penguins or trolls, or scenes like a fight on a beach between our heroes and a trio of badass snowmen, or a visit to the lair of Krampus (Kristofer Hivju) are truly off-the-wall, in a good way.
The actors are proficient, too. Johnson keeps an admirably straight face as the towering elf, while Evans is a likable everyman. Simmons is an unusually trim Santa, but he dries the role out with matter-of-fact line readings and an understated warmth. And though she’s not given nearly enough to do, it’s great to see Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. Claus.
Red One is now playing in Valley movie theaters.
