In recent years, movie studios have moved to capitalize on the trendy debate over Die Hard’s status as a Christmas movie: bona fide holiday classic or an action flick that just happens to take place amid the Yuletide season? After endless cloying stories of saccharine and serendipitous love, audiences have been pining for a version of Love Actually where Colin Firth plays a muscle-clad Rambo on a mission to rescue Santa.
Attempting to tap into this niche, Chris Morgan, the screenwriter behind a slew of the Fast and Furious sequels, has created Red One, a bloated, $250 million production set in a world where mythical creatures ranging from the Headless Horseman to Santa Claus roam free. But despite its promising premise, Red One is a misfire from the start.
