Review: Jake Kasdan's big-budget 'Red One,' starring Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson, is a disastrous bid at a Christmas franchise for Amazon/MGM.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new Christmas movie, Red One, has been labeled a “festive flop” by critics in early reviews. Helmed by Johnson’s Jumani director Jake Kasdan and written by Chris Morgan – who wrote several Fast & Furious movies – the new action-comedy is about a kidnapped Santa Claus (JK Simmons) whose top operative (Johnson) must team up with an accomplished tracker (Chris Evans) to find him and save Christmas.

Dwayne Johnson's Yuletide action-fantasy-comedy, Red One, is not to be confused with his 2021 action-comedy crime caper, Red Notice. The new film is getting a wide theatrical release, for starters, while the earlier one went straight to Netflix ...

Ripe with DC and Marvel alums, Red One could easily become a Christmas franchise in today's culture of existing IP.

Reviews and reactions are in for Red One, the new Christmas movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans – and they're not great. The film sees Santa Claus, played by JK Simmons, kidnapped. Callum Drift (Johnson), head of security in the North Pole, sets out to rescue him, teaming up with bounty hunter Jack O'Malley (Evans).

Here's the bad joke of Hollywood Christmas movies. They tend to begin, and end, with a blast of old-school Yuletide cheer. But that's just a tease. In between, most of them make a point of straying about as far from the Christmas spirit as possible.

The movie's shining light is JK Simmons as a muscly Santa who can easily do 500 press-ups in five minutes. He manages to sell the schmaltzy lines and is a great fit as Saint Nick in his second Santa movie outing following Netflix's exceptional Klaus. Unfortunately, the plot means he's off-screen after the first act and the movie suffers for it.

It sounds like a bad joke, but Jake Kasdan (and $250 million) turned a story about action heroes rescuing Santa Claus into a real film The post ‘Red One’ Review: Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evan’s Expensive Christmas Action Comedy Could Have Been Worse appeared first on TheWrap.

The Rock gets knocked silly by monsters and murderous snowmen in his bid to save Santa Claus in a festive film devoid of Christmas cheer 2/5 stars Christmas with The Rock is not nearly as much fun as one would hope.