RED ONE (2024)
4K Ultra HD + Digital
Label: WBDHE
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 123 Minutes 2 Seconds
Audio: Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) with Optional English subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Jake Kasdan
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, J.K. Simmons
Red One (2024) is a Christmas-action flick featuring J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man) as Santa Claus aka Code Name: Red One – a jacked-up muscular St. Nick who is gearing-up for Christmas, protected by the North Pole’s Head of Security Callum "Cal" Drift (Dwayne Johnson, Black Adam). The film establishes a multilateral military organization known as MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) that protects a secret peace treaty between mythological creatures and human, this organization is headed by Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu, Kill Bill), who helps protect Santa and secure the North Pole.
This is to be Cal's last Christmas working at the North Pole, he having become disillusioned by the sheer amount of people on the Naughty List, this being the first year that there were more naughty than nice people on the planet. However, just before Christmas a team of mercenaries break into the North Pole and kidnap Santa, leaving Cal and MORA to find the culprits and free Santa before Christmas is ruined, which leads them to hacker/bounty hunter Jack 'The Wolf' O'Malley (Chris Evans, Captain America) who used his special set of skills to locate the secret location of the North Pole, which he sold to an anonymous client. O'Malley is a true Santa non-believer, and is unaware of what he was locating for his client, and finds the idea of Santa and other mythological creatures actually existing to be quite a shock. Cal teams-up with O'Malley to find the real culprit, leading to a globe-trotting adventure that will include encounters with buff killer snowmen, the winter witch Grýla (Kiernan Shipkam, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), and Santa's adopted brother Krampus (Kristofer Hivju, Cocaine Bear).
Watching this brought to mind The Polar Express, Die Hard, Krampus, and Hellboy 2 if somehow you managed to smash those together, in the process somehow squeezing out any sort heart or Christmas sentimentality. This is really a soulless popcorn flick that requires you to shut your brain off and just go along with it. That's not to say it's terrible, no, this is something worse, this us just very middling.
The best stiff for m is the Johnson/Evans good Santa cop/bad Santa cop buddy-cop interactions, and the trip to Krampus's lair which is populated by an array of mythological creatures that brought to mind Hellboy 2 or Nightbreed. When the true culprit is revealed their plan involves punishing naughty kids, which has elements of Krampus. It just sort of feels like they are pulling in all these elements but there's just no Christmas heart to any of it. Even a tacked-on sub-plot involving O'Malley making things right with his estranged son has zero emotional impact, it just rings hollow, and feels like moviemaking by committee. Even the Polar Express with it's creepy and uncanny motion-capture animation managed to squeeze some feelings into to, but this is largely an emotionless, bloated, Christmas action flick with a little bit of eye candy, a couple of fun comedic moments, but zero heart.
Audio/Video: Red One (2024) on 4K Ultra HD looks solid enough with the Dolby Vision color-grade, however, there's a softness to it that didn't sit right for me. I don't know if it's the heavy use of digital effects or what, but between the softness and how dark it was it just didn't pop the way I felt it should have in 4K UHD. The Doby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) is pleasing with plenty of surround activity, including the height channels and a robust bottom end.
The flick has zero extras, not even a trailer, which might speak to how poorly the film performed at the box office, and there being some production woes on set that ballooned the budget to over 250 million dollars, but there should at least be a commentary track, but maybe no wants to talk about this stinker. We do get a Slipcover and a 4K Digital Copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Slipcover
- Digital Copy
Buy it!
#ad
