For Christmas, Amazon gave us a knock-off Marvel movie

Movies made by committee, where confused tones and tangents compete for dominance, at least offer some compelling friction in their chaos. Movies made by focus groups, like Red One, enter into a bland Fake Movie canon dominated by Netflix’s wannabe blockbusters (Red Notice, Heart Of Stone, The Gray Man). These movies—starring former superhero actors and/or helmed by their middle-manager filmmakers—chase the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s bet-hedging success, offering a bit of everything to everyone while excelling at exactly nothing. They are, as I wrote when reviewing Heart Of Stone, “two hours that have an uncanny resemblance to cinema, but upon closer inspection, are more akin to a business proposal.” Those three Netflix movies were crafted to be dead-eyed horses forever circling around a content carousel labeled “spy action thrillers,” but Amazon MGM’s Red One is even more mercenary in pursuit of a holiday franchise.

Being both a spy action thriller and a Christmas movie (and a buddy comedy and a father-son reconnection narrative), Red One is like the $250M version of those IP-chasing public domain slashers starring Steamboat Willie and Winnie the Pooh. What’s a more recognizable, copyright-free name to build your synergistic, omnigeneric tentpole around than Santa? 

So, Red One slots a bevy of Yuletide nouns into its MCU Mad Lib, snagging ex-superheroes Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans from the Fake Movie mines. The pleather-clad globetrotters chasing MacGuffins with a bevy of gadgets and powers and conspicuously brand-forward cars just happen, this time, to be on the hunt for a kidnapped Santa Claus—punching CG hench-snowmen instead of CG bug-aliens. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the film was written by Fast & Furious franchise scribe Chris Morgan, but that should only reinforce the idea that all blockbusters are approaching a monotonous event horizon from which no originality can escape.

As Jesse Hassenger notes in his A.V. Club review, the desaturated colors, half-assed quips, CG sheen, and anonymously frantic action sequences don’t help Red One beat the MCU allegations. But that’s just on the surface of the flat, digital-forward film, where conversations mostly happen in the passenger seat on the way to the next Atlanta warehouse. Beyond its build-it-in-post aesthetic, the world of Red One replaces imagination with imitation. Where Artemis Fowl made its myth-meets-tech universe accessible for kids, Red One introduces it to the military-industrial-superhero-movie complex. Referring to Santa in Secret-Service-speak is just the beginning.

You see, in Red One—a Christmas movie from Amazon deeply concerned with delivery and manufacturing logistics—Santa lives in a North Pole factory-metropolis, protected by a Wakandan force-field dome and guarded by multiple extra-governmental agencies. Callum Drift (Johnson) helms one of these, E.L.F. (Enforcement, Logistics, and Fortification). No, The Rock isn’t ironically playing a diminutive elf, despite Drift’s main gimmick being that he can shrink and grow at will like Ant-Man; he’s just a loyal employee, working for Amazon like everyone else. Maybe Johnson pissed in a bottle on set out of solidarity with his delivery driver comrades?

E.L.F. works with M.O.R.A. (the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), which is legally distinct from S.H.I.E.L.D. but similarly obsessed with walkie-talkie comms, corporate efficiency, proper protocol, busy computer monitors, and wearing black. It’s led by Lucy Liu, who gestures towards the Headless Horseman with even less-disguised weariness than Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. They are all concerned that the Naughty List’s count is up 20% year-over-year. Remember when massive tight-assed organizations were the bad guys in holiday movies?

Red One’s bad guys look pretty much like the rabble running around any other recent action movie. The main villain Grýla may be an ancient winter witch taking inspiration from Cate Blanchett’s Hela, but her militia of underlings aren’t weird little critters like those clocking into Santa’s warehouse. Instead, they’re burly guys with face tattoos wearing flak jackets. Like so many superhero movies ashamed of their origins, Red One attempts to ground itself in all the wrong ways.

Who’s shooting at this witch’s heavies? Why are witches using drones? Why does an exposition scene take place in the North Pole’s weight room, with producer-star The Rock spotting J.K. Simmons’ needlessly jacked zaddy Santa? The answer to all these is that big muscles, militarized gear, and high-tech nonsense check some algorithmic box, one looking to counterbalance the inherent frivolity of a Christmastime caper or comic book lore with Serious Cool Stuff. It’s why the main character, Jack O’Malley (Evans), is just there to roll his eyes at the idea of “saving Christmas” and end every other scene with a remark that’s become its own sarcastic shorthand among Marvel-bashers: “What just happened?”

What just happened is that Red One was designed from the start, by Hiram Garcia, president of The Rock’s production company, less as a movie and more of a shareholder stocking-stuffer. It was made by people who spend their days trying to exploit the Santa Clause for tax breaks. It was made to stake a claim for a potential universe, to fulfill brand partnerships (with Hasbro, Mattel, and at least a few others front-and-center), and to exploit overworked FX houses with yet another final monster too dark and green-gray to see. Some have described Red One as a Grinch-like film, but that’s not quite right. Red One didn’t steal Christmas, but purchased it in a hostile takeover and laid everyone off.