There’s a fire in my tree.

Every so often a movie comes by that makes you wonder, how the hell did this get made? Jake Kasdan’s last two movies were the Jumanji films, which I guess explains why The Rock was a shoe-in for the lead role. Or this is money laundering for The Rock who pulled in a cool $50 million. Where is Kevin Hart? He mo-capped all the elves. Red One was written by Chris Morgan, who you’ll know from his extensive work on The Fast & Furious series.

Red One stars Chris Evans as Jack O’Malley, the kind of guy who would literally steal candy from a baby. The movie lets us know this by having Jack steal a piece of candy from a baby in the opening scene. Dwayne the Yuletide Rock Johnson plays Callum Drift who serves as bodyguard to Santa. And who is Santa? Who else, but JK Simmons. Jack O’Malley is a hacker who does the computer hacking to track seismic activity, which apparently nobody else can do, for criminals.

Because he’s bad with money even though his character could probably model and make bank. Or open up an Only Fans. Bonnie Hunt plays Mrs. Claus, and I love Bonnie Hunt. Callum meanwhile has decided to retire from the life of serving Santa Claus because so much of the world have become unrepentant assholes. I’m sure his role in the plot won’t be about finding his appreciation for people and staying on his job.

I do love movies like this because they throw little pieces of information on how the world works. Callum mentions finding a younger “300 year old” replacement, Santa talks about burning 430 million calories on Christmas day. The military is aware of Santa’s existence, and all kinds of mythical beings are in fact real like Gryla. There’s a gorilla on the loose!? I also enjoy the idea of the North Pole being run like a military outfit but with a lot more joy because in a world where people can figure out that Santa is real, you’re bound to have like…Al Qaeda or something wanting to kidnap him.

The design of the North Pole is also great, given it’s a big modern city whose entire purpose is built around delivering packages. The whole operation is shielded apparently by the Wakanda dome. They use “trolls” to scour the internet for information. It’s so stupid that it all comes around to being charming.

And they successfully kidnap Santa, bringing us Zoe Harlow played by Lucy Liu. Jack’s ex is Olivia played by Mary Elizabeth Ellis, aka the Waitress. Jack naturally has a bad relationship with his ex-wife and son who in turn is a hoodlum with a bad attitude. Because these movies legally can’t have characters with functioning families. Kiernan Shipka plays Gryla and Kiernan is adorable. Marc Evan Jackson plays Uncle Rick, and Jon Rudnitsky plays an influencer named Beef Stew.

There’s a whole plot about how Santa is a casual observer of humanity while the bad guys want more intervention. You’d think Gryla would be about spreading misery, but rather she wants to inject an extremely draconian view where the naughty (most of humanity) are punished in retribution for centuries of not having an authority figure to straighten them out, and a world where people don’t fear punishment anymore.

Red One is exactly the kind of movie I expected the joyless weenies who make up the movie critic population to hate, and the 30% critic vs 90% audience score kinda cements that. Lucy Liu threatening to kill Chris Evans is exactly what I needed around Christmas. Chris Evans says “I trojan horsed a digital tracking bug into their VPN” with a lot of conviction. You know at least part of this movie was made because of the product placement with Mattel, Hot Wheels, etc.

This movie is hilariously stupid, including several scenes where The Rock makes himself tiny like Ant Man and beats up a bunch of dudes Hulk style. The CG is dogshit. There’s nothing groundbreaking about a movie where a guy who grew up hating Santa as a kid learns that he’s real and also fixes his family while saving the holiday, but the cast of this really brings it together. You’d think JK Simmons would be a grumpy Santa like Mel Gibson was in Fatman but he’s actually very cheerful.

I thought the CG polar bear would have more presence, but he doesn’t.

Rating: A-