Ah, the Christmas movie. That old chestnut. That cozy perennial pastime where - let’s just pick one scene from Red One - Dwayne Johnson, playing Santa’s body guard, faces off with a witch-possessed mercenary (Nick Kroll) and ice-sword-wielding CGI snowmen on the sandy beaches of Aruba. Can’t you just taste the eggnog?
Such are the ugly-sweater clashes of Red One, a big-budget gambit to supersize the Christmas movie. Countless movies before have wrestled with who Santa is. Does he really exist? But Red One is the first one to answer doubters with a superhero-like St. Nick who runs his North Pole operation like the army, who bench presses and counts carbs and who, given that he’s played by J.K. Simmons, looks like he could teach one heck of a jazz class.
Summary:
More oh oh no than ho ho ho
