Most Christmas-related action flicks go for bloody “R”-rated fare like 2022’s Violent Night and 2023’s Silent Night. With 2024’s Red One, we find a holiday adventure with a much more family-friendly vibe.

On Christmas Eve, a mysterious and nefarious team kidnaps Santa Claus (JK Simmons). Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) leads St. Nick’s security detail and this event sends him on a mission to find and rescue his missing boss.

This proves easier said than done, so Callum recruits expert hacker – and permanent “Naughty List” resident - Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans) to help with the pursuit. Callum and Jack form an uncomfortable alliance as they embark on their quest to save Santa.

In general, family-friendly Christmas movies exist as a license to print money. Given the presence of stars like Evans and Johnson as well as other names such as Simmons and Lucy Liu, Red One looked like a sure-fire hit.

Instead, the film took in a mere $185 million worldwide. With a budget of $250 million, that made Red One look like a major flop.

However, Amazon financed the film with the initial intention to run it exclusively on their Prime streaming service. Apparently Johnson insisted that they give it a theatrical release a month or so before it could be viewed at home.

Did audiences fail to show up to see Red One at multiplexes because they knew they’d soon get to check it out in their abodes? Or did crowds stay away because the movie simply looked lousy?

Though I saw Red One theatrically, I went into it without much enthusiasm, mainly because of that last sentence. While I thought the basic premise showed promise, trailers didn’t lead me to think it’d offer a classic.

And this proved accurate, as Red One didn’t turn into a memorable adventure. That said, it also didn’t deliver the disaster I feared.

Nothing here ever reaches the level of “so bad it’s good”. Instead, Red One just feels wholly, entirely, completely meh.

The movie delivers Certified Uninspired Cinematic Product. Which seemsl like a shame, as the concept enjoys possibilities.

Unfortunately, we basically get a mix of action and/or comedy scenes in search of a plot. Red One wanders vaguely from one sequence to another with little clarity or purpose.

Sure, Red One comes with a clear plot at its core: rescue Santa. However, the end product meanders so much that it always feels disjointed.

Part of the problem stems from the fact Red One takes itself far more seriously than it should. While it attempts some laughs, most of the movie plays as dark and foreboding.

This leads Red One to seem oddly grim. The movie comes with too much inherent silliness and comedic potential for the filmmakers to depict the story in such a joyless manner.

Red One also suffers from one of the most underused/poorly defined villains in recent memory. If you noticed, I never mentioned the flick’s primary baddie in my synopsis.

That’s because sinister shape-shifter Gryla (Kiernan Shipka) barely factors into the story too much of the time. While her quest to punish all the world’s “naughty” folks motivates the story, the character herself hardly matters.

That leaves a gaping hole at the heart of Red One. A movie like this needs a dominating evil mastermind, not some infrequently-seen and seemingly insubstantial threat.

As noted earlier, we get a pretty good cast from Red One, though not a single one of them does much with the roles. The absolute lack of chemistry between Johnson and Evans becomes a particular issue, as their scenes together lack the spark they need.

All of these complaints aside, Red One offers a wholly professional affair. Whatever it lacks in terms of creativity, it comes with solid production values.

And it doesn’t become an unpleasant way to spend 123 minutes, though I think it would work better if it lost a good half an hour. Too much of the film lacks real purpose, so we find plenty of scenes that could get cut.

Anyway, this never turns into a bad movie, but it remains a resolutely bland one with precious few signs of real creativity to be found. With every possible sign of “filmmaking by committee” on display, Red One offers a forgettable stab at holiday fare.

Red One appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Expect a largely good Dolby Vision presentation here.

My only real complaint here stemmed from the film’s dim look. The movie seemed oddly dark much of the time.

However, this appeared to be a conscious photographic choice and not a quirk of my 4K player. Too many scenes boasted vibrant lighting for me to ascribe the general murkiness to a technical issue.

Why did the filmmakers choose to create a film that looks glum so much of the time? As discussed in the body of the review, they decided to make it a more somber tale than one might anticipate, so that translated to visual design.

When we got away from the murk, the image looked terrific. A native 4K project, sharpness worked well.

Little softness appeared, and when it did, it seemed to stem from photographic choices. Some pre-Santa-napping scenes opted for a “magical” vibe that led to some intentionally gauzy elements, but these remained minor.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws failed to appear.

Colors leaned toward 21st Century Standard orange and teal. That seemed odd for a Christmas movie, but given that Red One aimed more for action than for yuletide, the choices made sense.

The general darkness of the image meant the palette only occasionally boasted vivacity. Still, the hues looked as the filmmakers intended them, and during those rare bright scenes, HDR gave the colors terrific impact.

Blacks seemed pretty dense and shadows worked fine – well, as fine as the flat photography allowed. HDR gave punch to whites and contrast on those instances when we found some brightness. I thought the image seemed too inky to get a grade above a “B+”, but the 4K did represent the source.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the Dolby Atmos soundtrack of Red One came with positives, but like the visuals, the audio didn’t quite live up to expectations. Given the plot, I figured it would deliver nearly-constant activity and a highly impressive soundscape.

Instead, I found a soundfield that seemed pretty good but not as engaging as I figured. The movie’s more dynamic scenes brought positive use of the various channels and combined to create an engrossing impression.

However, these occurred less frequently than anticipated, so Red One failed to become the sonic delight I hoped to find. Still, it used music well and formed a generally positive soundfield.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that appeared distinctive and natural. Music displayed nice range and punch.

Effects boasted positive dimensionality as well, with solid low-end as necessary. While this became a “B+” soundtrack, I thought it could’ve been more impressive given the nature of the story.

No extras appear here.

With a clever spin on the standard Christmas tale, Red One seemed like a probable winner. Unfortunately, even a good cast can’t make this anything more than a mediocre action tale. The 4K UHD boasts very good picture and audio but it lacks bonus features. Though Red One manages moderate entertainment, it never turns into anything better than meh.