It is that time of year when Christmas songs and movies start to thaw out in movie theatres, something the Hallmark channel does year-round. And with that comes a long line of attempts at the next Christmas classic film that generations of families, kids, and adults will watch repeatedly; or not.

When a villain kidnaps Santa Claus from the North Pole, an E.L.F. (Extremely Large and Formidable) operative joins forces with the world’s most accomplished tracker to find him and save Christmas.

Review

Here we go with the holiday films that try to create a franchise or world that can result in a new set of big-money hits in theatres with many sequels and scores of audiences to watch. Yet, Red One coming in at a budget of 250mil for a holiday film, has a massive hurdle to overcome to be successful. The film itself does nothing to help make that happen.

You have to wonder why actors like Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans would sign on to a film like this. The two people who genuinely seemed to be having fun with the movie were Lucy Liu and J.K. Simmons. The issue with Red One is that it’s not purely directed at families or adults. Comedic moments that are too childish to register with adults. With adult language that is over the heads of kids and a mix of story messaging that leads from minimal holiday affair to dark fantasy, Red One gets L.ost quickly.

While the film was shot in Atlanta, the level of CGI used in the film, which brings its 250mil budget, is E.xasperating and far too distracting. Campy holiday films can be great, and there are many that audiences will disagree on fairly often and yet they repeat their watch of them every season. Red One will ultimately be F.orgettable and with such a high bar budget, likely unsuccessful at kicking off an entire franchise of films.

Our recommendation is to catch it on streaming, if you already subscribe to the platform it ends up on.

Credit: Amazon MGM Studios