It's a search-and-rescue twist on the usual saving Christmas premise, and this particular chase leads our protagonists worldwide. There’s been an obvious trend over the last few years regarding Christmas movies. They recently tend to tilt in one of two ways.
First, you have the bright-as-can-be holiday romance, where you follow an entertaining but formulaic story from the meet-cute to full-blown yuletide bliss. The other is the rather disturbing direction of violent slasher-type films. There aren’t that many notable family-friendly Christmas movies lately.
Enter Red One, which, at PG-13, is the closest thing in a long time. And while it does have fistfights and explosions, it also delivers a warm fuzzy feeling department. Right before Christmas Eve, Santa Clause, played by J.
K. Simmons, is kidnapped from his residence (more a small municipality, really) in the North Pole, and it is up to his man Friday and head of security, Callum Drift (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) to find him. Burnt out and disillusioned after a few centuries of service and what he views as mankind’s slow descent into naughtiness, Callum was ready to throw in the towel.
But now that his boss and friend are missing, he must stay on and get Jolly old St. Nick is back safely. With him are Zoe, the head of a mysterious secret agency played by Lucy Liu, and a giant but immediately lovable polar bear enforcer named Garcia.
Chris Evans joins them as Jack O’Maley, information broker, hacker, all-around sh.