Dumb Things In Red One We Can't Ignore

"Red One" is a 2024 Christmas-action-adventure-comedy-wannabe "four-quadrant" blockbuster that was somehow released in theaters instead of straight to streaming where it belonged (if it honestly really belongs anywhere at all). The plot of this content (hard to call it a film at this point) follows the buff and badass bodyguard Callum Drift (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) –- decked out in tight-fitting muted green-and-red leather duds –- whose powerful client is none other than jolly ol' Saint Nick himself, Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons, who previously voiced the character in the 2019 CG-animated film "Klaus"). And, apparently, thanks to The Rock (we're not going to call him Callum going forward), Simmons' Santa is now hitting the gym and got buff too, rather than sporting his classic rotund visage.

The North Pole has also gotten a foolhardy modern makeover in "Red One," with everything now overly high-tech and garish –- it's more draconian Amazon warehouse than whimsical winter wonderland. Eventually, terrorists sneak into the secret workshop and kidnap Santa right before Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, the only lead The Rock has is the involvement of the notorious hacker, thief, and "Level Four Naughty Lister" Jack O'Malley, aka "The Wolf" (a slumming Chris Evans), who unknowingly gave away Santa's location to the terrorists for a price. Now it's up to The Rock and Jack to work together and find Santa before it's too late and Christmas is ruined!

If that sounds dumb ... that's because it is. However, what follows below are the dumbest moments in this Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans box-office bomb, so buckle up, we're about to go level five naughty!

Warning: spoilers below!

The moment that "Red One" goes off the rails is pretty immediate. After opening to a (honestly pretty useless and perfunctory) flashback scene of Chris Evans' Jack O'Malley being a naughty kid, it's not too long until we're whisked away to the present day where we're introduced to The Rock as he guards Santa Claus at a Philadelphia mall. There, the real Santa pretends to be a fake mall Santa for some reason, giving shades of "Miracle on 34^th Street." So far, so good (besides how Santa got the job in the first place, and why the mall would allow his bodyguard to be part of a package deal).

However, after Santa leaves the mall, The Rock calls upon a squad of SUVs that clandestinely escorts his boss to a U.S. military hangar. In the hangar, Santa's classic sleigh –- whose reindeer in this version are giant-sized -– is parked next to a few high-end fighter jets. Afterward, a U.S. military liaison greets Santa, and orders two pilots to escort his sleigh during takeoff. Soon, though, Santa gives the reindeer a magical command, and the sleigh goes into light speed towards the North Pole.

However, if Santa can go that fast (one of the explanations of how Santa can pull off delivering billions of presents in one night) ... what are the jets' purpose? They don't follow him for long, and once he speeds up, what mortal vehicle could catch him anyway?

In "Red One," there's a secret multilateral international government organization called "M.O.R.A," which stands for "Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority." It's also the start of the cringe-inducing acronyms used throughout the film. Santa, of course, is a member of "M.O.R.A." due to him being a mythological creature himself. The head of the organization, Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu, slumming it even more than Evans), even solemnly declares to The Rock at some point that they will have to contact the president of the United States and other world leaders to tell them there won't be a Christmas this year.

Which brings up a lot of political ramifications. Like, was Donald Trump briefed about the existence of Santa Claus at some point? And which world leaders are aware? Does Vladimir Putin know? Nicolas Maduro? Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the U.S. wouldn't attempt to invade the North Pole. Santa seems pretty Communist, i.e. running a moneyless, stateless nation giving things away for free. How would that kind of immediate, mass import of goods potentially affect the world economy, especially a consumer-based capitalist one? 

To be fair, it's likely the U.S. isn't aware of Santa Claus' exact location (due to his sled being exponentially faster than fighter jets, and the North Pole being protected by a magical cloaking dome). However, Jack O'Malley is considered to be an exceptional hacker and tracker and is also easily bought. Even if the U.S. government couldn't do it, why not just hire Jack to do it, as the villain does?

One of the most egregious scenes in the film, due to its basic –- and unexamined –- moral implications, is when The Rock tortures Jack O'Malley. To set up the scene, Jack had just been kidnapped (without due process or search warrants, we might add) by Director Harlow and her M.O.R.A. agents, then shipped off to the North Pole to get interrogated on how he helped track down Santa, which quickly turns into an "enhanced interrogation" (aka torture). First The Rock threatens Jack, then orders Agent Garcia -– a large, sentient polar bear -– to literally squeeze Jack for the info, leading to the sound of cracking bones and Jack screaming in pain. That is, until Harlow orders them to stop ... though it's implied that this is a semi-regular occurrence.

A big problem is how this is all played for laughs. It's riffing off of post-9/11 shows and movies –- such as "Zero Dark Thirty" (which got a lot wrong from the main story) and episodes of "24" -– which would portray torture as a necessary tool against terrorism. The supposed humor in "Red One," then, comes from the incongruity of the gritty, hard-boiled set-up, contrasted with the whimsical Christmas movie aesthetics. The morality of The Rock or of Santa's organization, however, is not meant to be questioned.

Worse, the whole theme is about how Santa doesn't want to punish bad kids but rather reward the good ones, which is a counterpart to the villain Grýla's (Kiernan Shipka) plan to punish the whole world. So, to have a scene condoning punitive violence seems to intrinsically contradict that message.

One of the cringiest running bits in "Red One" has got to be characters po-facedly spouting off a bunch of "comically" ridiculous acronyms throughout the film's interminable runtime. To be fair, the first one introduced -– M.O.R.A. -– isn't really a joke, and only exists as an obvious failed attempt at jump-starting some sort of cinematic holiday universe, and would presumably be acting as the (assuredly dead) universe's S.H.I.E.L.D, Monarch, or Prodigium (remember that from Universal's Dark Universe? Of course you don't). The only humor derived is from the schadenfreude aimed at the studio's hubris.

Other acronyms, however, are clearly attempts at jokes (emphasis on "attempts"), like "N.L." standing for "Naughty Lister" (Jack is explicitly said to be an "N.L. 4"). However, the worst "humorous" acronym has got to "E.L.F.," which stands for "Enforcement, Logistics, and Fortification," the organization with special agents in red-and-green "tacticool" leather outfits that protect Santa Claus and is headed by The Rock. He then somehow gets offended when Jack asks him if he's an elf himself.

However, why would The Rock be insulted? Is he racist? Because to make the "E.L.F." acronym joke even worse and more nonsensical, Santa's little elves also exist in this world. Are they a part of the "E.L.F." team as well? If so, how do they feel about the acronym being named after their species? And, again, why is The Rock so discriminatory towards his cheery Christmas colleagues? The mind boggles.

In "Red One," The Rock's weapon of choice is a magical gauntlet that can turn toys into real objects. For instance, in a scene that was showcased prominently in the marketing, The Rock uses the gauntlet to transform a Matchbox toy car into a real, drivable, product-placed sports car. Chris Evans' Jack then quips that he wants to use the gauntlet on a Wonder Woman doll...which The Rock says wouldn't work.

Now, the problem isn't the gadget itself (sure, it's dumb, but that isn't a dealbreaker unto itself, and it could be fun if used in the right context. Rather, the issue is how lazy the rules around it are. Essentially, though we're told it has limitations, we're never told what its limitations are, or really what the full extent of its powers even really are either. Sure, The Rock has a scene where he ostensibly asks Jack — but also the audience, in a metatextual way — to "stop asking questions."

But, seriously, what counts as a toy? At one point, The Rock takes a "Monopoly" board game but does nothing with it. However, could he conceivably crush an enemy with a life-sized hotel piece? And would it be made of brick and mortar, or still colored plastic? What about a NERF gun? Would the projectiles become real, exploding missiles instead of foam?

Also, it can turn a chicken keychain into a live bird ... which means that Jack's assumption about the Wonder Woman doll might (unfortunately) work, given what's explicitly shown on screen.

Another dumb aspect of the nonsensical Christmas world-building in "Red One" is how all toy stores, for some reason, have magical portals that can teleport people to other toy stores across the world. The Rock explains to a reasonably dumbfounded Jack that this is used as a travel network for Santa's helpers, and is also where The Rock gets his aforementioned "supplies" (i.e. toys).

However, there seems to be a lot of –- surprise, surprise -– logistical issues involved with these magical toy store portals. For one, when the doors are opened, the portal itself is hidden by an illusion of a small supply closet, but what's stopping an employee from getting a mop, and accidentally finding themselves in China or Finland? Also, what constitutes a toy store anyway? Is it a store that only sells toys, or would a mega store like Walmart or Target count, since it undeniably sells a lot of toys, even if it doesn't exclusively? Where is the line drawn?

Now, to be fair to "Red One," there is a blink-and-you-'ll-miss-it shot of The Rock using a special key from his keychain before opening the toy store supply closets, so presumably it's the key that's creating the portal, and not the toy store itself. However, that's still a plot hole, because if it's just the key that's creating the portal magic, couldn't The Rock just use it to make any door into a portal?

The toy store portals and The Rock's toy manipulation gauntlet both lead to one of the most annoying issues in any universe that relies on a secret magical world hidden away from the real one: How do you keep that world a secret for so long? It makes a certain amount of sense if the plot takes place entirely in the fantasy realm, or the fights in the real world are in remote places, or even if there's some sort of handwave-y magical or sci-fi explanation for why people aren't aware. However, "Red One" doesn't do any of that; instead, we have The Rock transforming a toy car into a real one in the middle of a crowded city street with no one batting an eye and then having a bombastic fight with sentient snowmen on a busy beach that didn't become headline news instantly.

This is especially galling in a modern context since everyone and their grandmothers now have phones that can record video, so even if people thought it was a hoax initially, the multiple angles and sources would prove their validity soon enough. Even if not, conspiracy theories would pop up immediately anyway.

There could've even been a plot point about the villain Grýla wanting to unveil the mythological realm to the humans to strike fear in them before her plan to imprison them, which would still fit into her megalomaniacal character. But alas.

Like a lot of the MCU films that "Red One" is clearly trying to emulate, the main dynamic and emotional core of the film is the bickering tête-à-tête of the two leads -– The Rock as Santa's stoic loyal soldier, and Jack O'Sullivan as the sardonic and selfish criminal-turned-anti-hero. This means their back-and-worth barbs take up most of the content's runtime, leaving little room for much else, including fleshing out the story's ostensible villainous witch, Grýla.

Essentially, her plan involves manufacturing billions of magical snow globes –- called a glaskafig –- that would trap any human that had ever done anything even remotely naughty...which would effectively be everyone living on Earth. At one point, toward the end of "Red One," Jack sees his estranged son Dylan (Wesley Kimmel) get trapped inside one of these glaskafigs, then in a series of events so stupid it almost made its own entry, Jack also finds himself trapped inside a magical snow globe too, positioned next to his son in Grýla's evil lair.

However, after a brief (and we mean brief) heart-to-heart between Jack and his son, the magical snow globe prisons break and shatter, freeing them both. This means that there's no way Grýla would've been able to magically keep billions of people locked up for long if simply being *slightly* nicer than usual for, like, five minutes would allow prisoners to escape. A regular prison would be better, and more evil too.

Now, admittedly, the logistical issues involving Santa are inherently a problem with all popular Christmas movies that focus on him. For instance, how can Santa reasonably travel across the world in one night? And how was he not seen or noticed during that time, given our advanced technology, such as radar, sonar, surveillance cameras, cellphones, satellite feeds, and more? Does he turn invisible? And, most importantly, do parents get amnesia about the presents they didn't buy?

The thing is, in most Christmas stories, the logistics of Santa's journey aren't that important, and can usually be handwaved with "because Christmas magic." Which, honestly, is fine. Holiday films are often simple fairy tales anyway, so there's nothing wrong with just implying Santa gets it done somehow. Some whimsy in your storytelling is healthy every now and then.

The issue with "Red One" is we do see the logistics. It's a big part of the final scene! Furthermore, one of the main plot points that gets the story in motion is Jack using satellite tech to track down and find Santa! So it answers a question no one was seriously asking, and the proceeds to answer it poorly. While Santa's reindeer are appropriately fast, Santa himself simply parkours everywhere at only slightly above regular human speed once arriving. And, even though it's established that tech can find him, he doesn't do anything to hide himself outside of turning small. The only clever moment –- how he deals with chimney-less houses -– is ripped off from 1994's "The Santa Clause"!

The North Pole as seen in "Red One" is basically a dystopian red-and-green-painted Amazon factory – not exactly a place that reads "wholesome," "Christmas," or "Santa." To add insult to injury, The Rock visits Santa's original, humble, now-historical cabin, with a plaque that even says, "where it all began." This obviously implies that Santa began his toy-making career in the aforementioned cabin, and then subsequently grew his empire to be as gaudy as possible — complete with flying drones.

This sort of capitalist hagiography, which galvanizes "great, self-made men," has always been a lie, even if it's constantly regurgitated in our mainstream media. Even Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who many point to as a prototypical "self-made billionaire," always fails to mention that he was given a loan from his family of over half a million dollars when accounting for inflation. That's an amount of wealth most people -– even in the '90s –- were not privy to. But seeing as Amazon MGM Studios is behind "Red One," it's no surprise that this plot point is shoved in.

What makes even less sense is that there seems to be no economy or commerce to speak of in the North Pole, so what's the need for constant growth anyway? Is the tech used to bootleg video games, like the oft-mentioned "Vampire Assassins 4"? And, if so, wouldn't the world leaders — who Santa apparently knows — have something to say about copyright infringement?