Red One
Santa (J.K. Simmons) gets kidnapped. Can Dwayne Johnson save him in time for the big day?…
In 2022, Violent Night brought us Die Hard in a Santa suit, looking to continue upon that tradition, director Jake Kasdan brings us the Christmas edition of Olympus Has Fallen. Kasdan’s Red One finds St. Nicklaus kidnapped two days before Christmas Eve. And you guessed it, now it’s up to Dwayne Johnson’s head of security, Callum Drift to team up with Chris Evans’ unscrupulous hacker-for-hire and hunt down our favorite man in red in time to save the big day.
But this is not Father Christmas like you’ve seen him before. As referenced by the trailers and photo shoots, this Nick although portrayed with all the usual warmth and charisma, Kasdan is leaning more into a commander-type figure who is running this giant operation.
An important figure like this is, of course, going to need protection from time to time, and that’s where Johnson’s Callum Drift comes in. Santa’s right-hand muscleman is the head of ELF (Enforcements and Logistics Fortification). This is just another example of how the stories we’ve grown up hearing are being turned upside down in the upcoming movie.
Playing against the Captain America type, Chris Evans joins Johnson as hacker, tracker and certified scoundrel Jack O’Malley, brought in to track Santa. Per trailers, at the start of the film, O’Malley is this action movie type character, a mercenary with skills to boot who has very little ethical promise (I mean he’s on the naughty list). Audiences should probably expect for his story to have the most growth over the expected two hour runtime. But Kasdan has warned that “As we get to know him, we still do our classic Christmas story, but we do it in a way that doesn’t sell out the kind of guy he is. So viewers shouldn’t expect it to be overly warm and fuzzy. It’s going to have a realistic shape to it.”
Kasdan, who really broke out as a blockbuster director working alongside Johnson in the most recent Jumanji movie series, is attempting to combine the elements of action-comedy, fantasy along with that classic Christmas spirit. On paper, this might be a tall ask, but if footage so far is correct, Red One appears to be all those things. The previews have been exciting and fun, as well as action packed, but will the movie feel Christmas-like?
To answer that, we have to ask ourselves why do we love Christmas movies to begin with. For me, I think it’s because if done correctly, they shine the light on what I love the most about the holiday season, which is family connections and connections to the ones I love. So will Red One be able to pull that off? Well, that’s one question that remains to be seen. One thing is certain, with additional characters added to the holiday canon, it sure looks like Kasdan and company had fun with the process.
Check out the Red One crew:
Red One Opens in Theaters on November 15
