Did Red One’s Election Night Gambit Work?

How the Rock Stole Xmas. Photo: Karen Neal/Amazon Studios/Everett Collection

Red One, the Christmas action movie starring Chris Evans, the Rock, and Lucy Liu out this month, would very much like you not to check out the reviews, thank you very much. Reviews for the film went up on Election Night, while audiences were focused on a different red one. Doesn’t exactly cast a vote of confidence. “If Red One were a disaster, it’d be more interesting,” Vulture critic Alison Willmore wrote. That’s exactly the kind of review a PR team’s hoping to bury. Only problem is there are more critiques where that came from. Find reviews for Red One below — no snow shovels required.

“The familiarity is the point with Red One, which might as well have been engineered to run in loops on cable, if that were still a thing. It’s a new movie that’s meant to feel like something you’ve already seen, like, I dunno, Jingle All the Way if the villain in Jingle All the Way were a Christmas witch played by Kiernan Shipka. The only surprising thing about it is that it reportedly cost $250 million, with details of its troubled production, up to and including bottles of A-lister piss, recounted entertainingly by the Wrap. There’s no real indication of the massiveness of that sum onscreen, which is enough to make you pine for the day when infamously bloated budgets were the result of scenes involving thousands of extras or sets knocked down and rebuilt to fit a director’s demanding vision.” —Alison Willmore, Vulture

“This is a film that aims for mythological intrigue and rollicking adventure but lands more often in lead-footed bloat, suitably accompanied by Henry Jackman’s hyperventilating score. It’s always busy but seldom fun. The fantasy environments have all the appeal of the center-of-the-earth fairy kingdom in Kenneth Branagh’s instantly forgotten Artemis Fowl. Non-human North Pole workers like talking penguins and a burly polar bear — none of which are ever at risk of being mistaken for real animals — add minimal amusement.” —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“You don’t watch Red One so much as stare ahead at the screen. It is a movie that is playing in front of you, I can comfortably give it that much, and for one meant to summon up the Christmas spirit, there’s not a whiff of mirth from the screenplay to the production level.” —Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire

“It’s a two-hander of a movie, so a lot of its success depends on the chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. They’re fine. Not at all dislikable. Not very interesting either. They can both be charming performers and they’re both giving it about 80 percent. It’s hard to do much better when most of their dialogue is exposition, most of their scenes are just fetch quests, and most of their direction was ‘more eye rolls.’” —William Bibbiani, the Wrap

“Red One leans into the camp factor, taking itself so seriously that it whips back around to being totally absurd, 100 percent committed to the bit, with dialogue about the Naughty List that sounds like they could be talking about nuclear codes. It’s like when a toddler hands you a fake phone, you answer that call.” —Glenn Garner, Deadline

“The villains are shape-shifters, but the key thing about Red One is that the whole movie is a shape-shifter: arduous action jape, low-kitsch Christmas fairy tale, buddy movie, family-reconciliation movie — every quadrant and demo must be served. At the movies, Christmas isn’t a holiday anymore, it’s a concept to be retro-fitted. Do you hear those sleigh bells jingling? Come on, it’s lovely weather for an over–the–top–of–the North Pole, through-the-supply-closet-portal, cargo-plane ride together with you.” —Owen Gleiberman, Variety