J.K. Simmons is a jacked zaddy Santa Claus in Red One, and that's not even one of the 10 weirdest things about this trailer.
In what Amazon - and movie theaters - are hoping will be a new holiday classic, Santa gets kidnapped. It's up to his security expert (Dwayne Johnson) and a non-believing tracker (Chris Evans) to team up and bring him back to the North Pole in time for Christmas. But ho-ho-holy crap does this movie look ugly. And I'm not just talking about the slap happy Krampus. With bad CGI, ultra-dark scenes and a complete lack of chemistry between its stars, this looks like a big lump of coal.
But I would love to be wrong, given the talent involved. While Jake Kasdan has transitioned to big action flicks (the new Jumanji series), he also directed Walk Hard, so I will always have a soft spot for him. It also may not be his fault. The Wrap reported that Johnson was regularly late to set, causing the budget to skyrocket to a whopping $250 million. That should put him on the Naughty List for sure.
Red One opens in theaters on November 15, just in time for the holiday season.
About Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about.
I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague.
Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work.
In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo.
I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.
