Is Red One the One?

A new challenger has emerged right before the peak of the holiday season. Red One, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, and J.K. Simmons is aiming to be the latest top Christmas movie.

The film, forged from the original story of Hiram Garcia, was released internationally on November 6th of this year, though it didn’t hit U.S. theaters until November 18th. The main plot of the movie follows an organization called Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (M.O.R.A.), a military organization based in the North Pole that focuses on keeping the peace between mythical creatures and humanity. Santa Claus, along with the Enforcement, Logistics and Fortification Team (ELF) team up with the MORA to protect the mythical creatures of the world from the dangers caused by both themselves and humanity. 

The rising action of the movie starts the moment Santa Claus is kidnapped by Gryla, the Winter Witch, and her 18 children. Through trial and error, it is up to Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) and Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) to save Santa Claus from impending doom before Christmas.

One of the most notable parts of the movie was the side characters. Many of these supporting roles either had their own fight scenes or classic one-liners. After interviewing Central students, Molly and Madi Kloeppel, they confirmed this. Madi commented that “Garcia [a minor supporting character] was the highlight of the movie,” before Molly added that she “liked the fight scenes.”

Companies and critics like Rotten Tomatoes have praised Red One over the past couple of weeks. However, Erik Childress, a Rotten Tomatoes critic, believes the only way the film can truly shine is if fans “lose interest in next week’s blockbuster one-two punch of Gladiator II and Wicked.” If they do not, Red One will die out and be a failure at the box office. The timing of the release might just be the thing that kills the movie before anyone even sees it.

To wrap it all up with a little bow, Red One is worth watching. The movie is currently being outplayed by two of the possibly biggest successes from the film industry of the year. Although, that is not a reason not to try it out; with a hysterical cast, epic fights, and the tropes of learning to believe in not just Santa but others too, Red One should be one of the movies on your watch list.