Red One 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Red One 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

Reviewed by Randy Miller III February 28, 2025

Jake Kasdan's bloated holiday bomb Red One failed to connect with audiences last November, so you know it's gonna play even worse in March. Essentially, this overlong film smells like warmed-over MCU/DCEU leftovers mixed with the thinnest of Christmas movie plots and struggles to gel long before it reaches the finish line. I may have given them the same ratings but, in all honesty, I enjoyed Red One even less than Dwayne Johnson's last project for Warner Bros., 2023's Black Adam, if only because this product feels like two generic films were lazily mashed together.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what happened."

Those "two films" implied above really do feel like separate entities and it takes quite awhile for them to fully combine. Scenario #1 involves Santa Claus (Simmons) and his burly bodyguard Callum Drift (Johnson), who's finally planning to retire after Christmas... not because he's too old, but because society's selfish behavior has ruined the holiday for him. Upon returning to the North Pole after a busy mall visit (in what year does this take place?), Santa is swiftly kidnapped by a black ops team that's led by a mysterious young woman in white (Kiernan Shipka) who manages to escape after a lengthy chase through the city by Callum. The covert agency known as MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), headed by Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu), soon discovers that this black ops team pinpointed the North Pole's top-secret location thanks to the efforts of an as-yet-unidentified hacker working for the woman in white.

Scenario #2, which begins while all this is going on, reveals that said hacker is Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans), shown in flashback as a kid who's never fallen for the Santa story. He's grown up to be a deadbeat dad, barely paying attention to his teenage son Dylan (Wesley Kimmel) while mostly ignoring the words of his ex-wife Olivia (Mary Elizabeth Ellis). His stealthy hacking of the North Pole's location, which involves setting fire to a Christmas display and literally taking candy from a baby before and after breaking into a government facility, goes as planned... but since he doesn't know who he's working for or what's at stake, he's as confused as anyone when MORA nabs him for answers.

These scenarios combine when Jack is told to team up with Callum to make things right, which later includes a trip to Aruba to confront the man who brokered the hacking deal (Nick Kroll) and even a visit with Santa's adoptive brother Krampus (Kristofer Hivju), complete with a couple rounds of Power Slap. It's even revealed that Krampus is the ex-boyfriend of the woman in white, who turns out to be a Christmas witch that must not be named.

It's sloppy storytelling for sure, the kind that's absolutely loaded with cheap exposition and wild plot twists that barely even make sense in the moment, let alone in hindsight. What's more is that the whole thing, as implied earlier, has the unmistakable odor of old MCU/DCEU leftovers with its questionable CGI and Callum's goofy superpowers (including the hilarious ability to shrink to the size of a kindergartner), not to mention the fact that Red One makes a weak attempt to create its own lucrative little cinematic universe with MORA, ELF ("Enforcement, Logistics, and Fortification", the team led by Callum), and several of its members, including an anthropomorphic polar bear named Agent Garcia (This little nugget is just sad.) Add in a patchy script, several padded subplots, and Dwayne Johnson playing the exact same role as always, and you're left with an oddly lifeless and disjointed film that rightly tanked at the box office last November. Its failure was almost inevitable due to an inflated $250 million budget that may or may not have been exacerbated by Johnson's $50M salary and on-set behavior, from near-constant tardiness to a habit of peeing in water bottles.

The funny thing about this product, though, is that it won't be appealing to almost every demographic the studio was clearly aiming for. Kids? Probably not. It's overlong, too dark, too cynical, and convoluted. Teenagers? Maybe, but they were all born long after Dwayne Johnson's best years and probably only remember co-star J.K. Simmons from Farmers Insurance commercials. Adults? Doubtful. There's almost no real fun to be had here and, aside from a half-point earned for trying to think outside the gift-wrapped box, almost everything about Red One feels dead on arrival.

Somehow, Red One has earned separate 4K and Blu-ray editions from Warner Bros., though tellingly both arrive with exactly zero extras -- it's par for the course with modern MGM releases, but it just frankly feels kind of weird for a big-budget film like this not to have at least a few promotional features attached. For obvious reasons I can't recommend Red One as a blind buy, although anyone who saw and enjoyed it theatrically may want to indulge.

Red One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: These screenshots are sourced from the separate Blu-ray edition, reviewed here.

While Warner Bros.' 2160p/HDR10 (Dolby Vision compatible) transfer of Red One ticks all the usual boxes for native 4K/HDR presentations, earning points for fine detail gains and of course color reproduction, the substantial darkness present in a majority of scenes partially negates many of these perceived benefits. Perhaps it's simply a couple shades dark by design, but in comparison I found the Blu-ray to be slightly more readable during a handful of scenes despite its downscaled SDR presentation. That's not to say that this 4K transfer is bad by any stretch; it just might require the perspective of someone who saw it theatrically to offer a more accurate critique, and not all scenes are as noticeably affected such as the sunny Aruba getaway and warmer-lit interiors. It's a soft 4/5 at best (3.75, slightly rounded up) from a purely base-level standpoint, despite the fact that there are no apparent compression issues related to said darkness such as black crush or compromised shadow detail. Like the film itself, it's just kinda dim.

Red One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I had no such reservations about the Dolby Atmos mix, which remains decently active from start to finish while never feeling overcooked. Sure, it's a bit patchy due to the film's wild mood swings and often artificial atmosphere, but from a fundamental standpoint it more than gets the job done with crisp dialogue, loads of discrete effects, noticeable bursts of LFE, and most importantly it's mixed at levels more or less right in line with my usual reference points. Those not equipped for Atmos will miss a few obvious sonic standouts like the height presence of oversized villains, approaching storms, and of course sleigh fly-bys, but in comparison the 7.1 downmix also sounds perfectly robust and should be more than enough in its own right. Optional subtitles, including English SDH, are also included during the film.

Red One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with poster-themed artwork, a matching metallic slipcover, and a Digital Copy redemption code. In keeping with newer MGM releases, no bonus features are included.

Red One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Are there a few funny moments during Red One? Sure. Do a couple of ideas land? Of course. But the majority of this overlong and otherwise lifeless production is pretty dire, and almost every bit of it feels like designed by committee and contains the absolute bare minimum of Christmas spirit. It's the kind of bloated, big-studio product we could use a lot less of these days, to be honest... and if that weren't enough, this 4K edition isn't exactly off-the-charts great either: the 2160p/HDR picture looks a few shades too dark and this only exacerbates the mostly grim atmosphere, while the complete lack of bonus features means that the film has to stand on its own two feet. It doesn't.