RED ONE

Name: RED ONE
Item: RED ONE
Author: Review

"Don’t Be Naughty"

Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

RED ONE stars Dwayne Johnson as Cal, Santa’s Head of Security at the North Pole. A human bounty hunter unwittingly helps an evil mythological being kidnap Santa the day before Christmas Eve. Cal tracks down the bounty hunter, a Christmas skeptic named Jack, who’s estranged from his own son. Jack doesn’t know who hired him, but he helps Cal uncover the kidnapper’s identity. Together, they must stop the villain from using Santa’s magic to shrink everyone’s who ever appeared on the “Naughty List” and imprison them in tiny magical snow globes.

RED ONE is marred by too much unnecessary foul language and by some scary fantasy creatures. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children. However, the story otherwise is loads of fun. It has lots of humor and lively action scenes. Also, there are touching moments when Santa, who’s referred to as St. Nicholas, spreads the joy, love and charity of Christmas. There are also touching moments when Jack tries to reconnect with his estranged son. Finally, Santa’s head of security in RED ONE eventually manages to rediscover his love for Christmas.

Content:

(BB, C, O, FR, LL, VV, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview, with positive references to the joy and love and charity of Christmas and a positive reference to the origins of Saint Nicholas and indirect references to God, story stresses the importance of having a positive relationship with one’s father but also one’s mother (though the mother-child relationship is not the movie’s central theme because the boy in the movie already has a good relationship with his mother) and promotes repentance, Christian charity and mercy toward “naughty” people, but there’s a focus on the Santas Claus myth regarding Christmas, and the movie takes place in a fantasy world where Santa Claus has magical powers, mythological creatures exist, there’s an evil witch, and a kind of works righteousness is preached;

Foul Language:

16 obscenities (including two AH words, several “s” words, and a few “h” and “d” words) and nine light profanities (one or two of the profanities are said in such a way that’s more reverential than really profane, including one gentle “Oh Dear Lord”);

Violence:

Some strong and light action violence features some scary creatures such as a few large menacing snowmen attack two humans and the mythological Krampus character is scary (whereas Saint Nicholas or Santa rewards good children with gifts, Krampus in Alpine folklore accompanies Santa on the night before Dec. 6, the Feast of St. Nicholas, to punish bad children or scare them into being good) and includes two men fight large scary snowmen, man has a slapping contest with Krampus where slaps send characters flying into walls or columns, government officials chase and fight bounty hunter who has crucial information, good guys fight henchmen so there’s lots of punching and character being knocked around, spectacular scene where hero form on high chases a vehicle below that’s trying to flee the North Pole after Santa Claus has been kidnapped, heroes try to stop Santa’s sleigh from being stolen, villain transforms into a giant scary humanoid creature with tentacles for legs and the tentacles grab and try to squash heroes;

Sex:

No sex;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

A wayward father sneaks drinks of alcohol from a flask and pours the alcohol on a fire to create a diversion;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

A wayward father steals a security badge, wayward father sneaks into a government facility for some bad guys trying to change Santa’s way of doing good, wayward father steals candy sucker from a baby, wayward father loses $25,000 gambling on a basketball game, and wayward father neglects his son, but he realizes the error of his ways, discovers the innocent child within him and others, repents, and changes his ways to be the good father he needs to be for his son.

More Detail:

RED ONE stars Dwayne Johnson as Santa’s Head of Security at the North Pole who teams up with a Christmas skeptic and bounty hunter, played by Chris Evans, to stop an evil mythological being from using Santa’s magic to shrink all the people who ever appeared on the “Naughty List” and imprison them in tiny magical snow globes. RED ONE is marred by too much gratuitous foul language and by some scary fantasy creatures, but the story otherwise is loads of fun with lots of humor, lively action scenes and touching moments when Santa, who’s referred to as St. Nicholas, spreads the joy, love and charity of Christmas and when the bounty hunter tries to reconnect with his estranged son.

A Christmas Eve flashback to the past opens the movie. It shows the thief, Jack O’Malley, as an orphaned 12-year-old child, playing with the other children at his Uncle Rick’s house. He reveals a closet full of wrapped presents to the other children. That proves Santa Claus isn’t real, he tells them. Uncle Rock interrupts them. He tells Jack that the presents in the closet are not from Santa. He adds that Santa isn’t coming until later that night when Jack’s asleep. Later, a scene shows Jack eating the cookies left for Santa late into the night. He’s clearly disappointed that Santa hasn’t shown.

Cut to the present day. Jack is all grown up, and he’s a professional thief and tracker with gambling debts. His wife divorced Jack, and Jack is estranged from his son, Dylan. As he explains to someone later in the movie, Jack feels he has nothing good to contribute to Dylan’s life, so he never shows up at sporting games or any other things Dylan does. Of course, Dylan doesn’t see it that way. Even so, when Jack has to pick up Dylan from school the day before Christmas Eve, they don’t have much to say to one another.

Meanwhile, a mysterious client has hired Jack to break into a nondescript, but secret, satellite tracking facility located in a little town square. The day before Jack picks up Dylan from school, some of the facility’s employees are doing some exercises near the gazebo outside the facility. Jack sets fire to the portable sound equipment in the gazebo and steal’s one employee’s security badge. He also steals some keys and enters the facility while a baby in a carriage stares at him while licking a candy sucker. Jack then uses the stolen badge to sneak into the satellite tracking room and attack a device to the tracking system. As Jack exits the building, he even steals the baby’s candy sucker!

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Santa’s bodyguard, Cal, is helping the team get ready for Santa’s trip on Christmas Eve. Even the government is in on the act, helping Santa Claus maintain secrecy. Santa and Cal do a dry run with Santa’s sleigh and the reindeer, who are depicted as large giant hooved animals.

On the dry run, Santa’s sleigh trips a tracker Jack placed on the satellite tracking system. This allows some bad guys to track Santa’s sleigh back to the North Pole. They travel to Santa’s location, cut through the force field surrounding the town, and kidnap Santa.

With help from Zoe, a government official helping with Santa’s security, Cal tracks down Jack to ask him who hired him to put the tracking device on the satellite system. Jack doesn’t know, but he leads Cal to a man in Aruba who can help. However, the mystery villain sends some monster snowmen to stop Cal and Jack.

Eventually, Cal and Jack learn that the mystery villain wants to steal Santa’s magic to shrink all the people who ever appeared on the “Naughty List” and imprison them in tiny magical snow globes.

RED ONE is marred by too much gratuitous, unnecessary foul language and by some scary fantasy creatures. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.

However, the story otherwise is loads of fun. It has lots of humor and lively action scenes. Also, there are touching moments when Santa, who’s referred to as St. Nicholas, spreads the joy, love and charity of Christmas. There are also touching moments when Jack tries to reconnect with his estranged son. Also, Cal has lost his faith in the human race and thinks he and Santa are no longer making a difference in the lives of people. However, Santa encourages him to see the little child inside each person. That child is worth saving and encouraging, Santa tells him.

So, despite RED ONE’s problems, and its embrace of the Santa fantasy, the movie has a lot of heart to redeem it, including a love for children and some of the joys of Christmas.