After Santa Claus (code name: Red One) is kidnapped, the North Pole's Head of Security (Dwayne Johnson) must team up with the world's most infamous bounty hunter (Chris Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas. (from IMDB)

It seems to be a yearly exercise for studios to release a new Christmas-themed feature to theaters in an effort to find a new annual favorite for families to revisit each year. This year, Amazon Studios throws their proverbial hat in the ring with a star-studded blockbuster effort named Red One. Boasting the talents of Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, J.K. Simmons, and Lucy Liu, Red One revolves around the kidnapping of Santa Claus that results in the big guy's personal assistant, Callum Drift, played by Dwayne Johnson, and master tracker Jack O'Malley, played by Chris Evans, reluctantly teaming up to find ole' Saint Nick in order to save Christmas. The end result is an uneven fantastical action/adventure that just isn't quite sure what it wants to be.

Admittedly, I'm a fan of a good genre-bender. Be it the lightning-in-a-bottle horror-comedy mashup of 1999's The Mummy and 1991's Tremors, or the superhero-politcal-thriller mix that was 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the sheer zaniness of the same year's Guardians of the Galaxy, sometimes the big risks taken pay off. But in most cases, the pieces just have to fall into the right places, and a successful movie isn't made on its star-studded cast alone (I'm looking at you, Mars Attacks). Red One is part action, part fantasy, part holiday, part comedy and part horror... and none of those genres are done particularly well. Part of the problem is certainly its reliance on CG-effects as many segments borderline vomit computer effects onto the screen. This is sadly made even more evident when catching the movie on a massive screen like IMAX where flaws don't really have a place to hide. It's unfortunate when chase scenes that should be thrilling - especially on a (really) big screen - are just completely uninteresting, or characters that should leave some kind of impact feel cheapened by their digital make-up (like the polar bear...men). It doesn't help that composer Henry Jackman, who has given us memorable scores before - speaking of The Winter Soldier - provides a completely forgettable soundtrack here. A great score can elevate average material, but a forgettable score isn't exactly going to right the ship.

Honestly, the strangest thing about Red One is its horror elements in a Christmas movie that's being touted as a "family film." It's a head-scratcher. But they're not fun horror elements (I'm partial to the original Ghostbusters, after all); they're just plain creepy. The creep-out factor starts when a witch (oh yeah, did I mention this Christmas movie's villain is a witch?) possesses a man that Cal and Jack are interrogating at the beach. He leans forward (like, while standing straight as an arrow) and is used as a vessel for the witch to speak. With his eyes glowing, he delivers the lines with exaggerated expressions and a deep, scratchy voice. It's full-on bizarre. Later in the film, the witch, who is played in human form as the completely unintimdating Kiernan Shipka, is seen as a sort of gigantic cloaked gremlin -- think the CGI-heavy ending of 1999's The Haunting, except it's 2024 -- as it battles our heroes. It's almost as strangely trippy as the finale battle in Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk fumble. These two sequences bookend the introduction of Krampus, the demon-like adopted brother of Santa Claus (*sigh* Yeah, you read that right). As Cal and Jack try to get information out of Krampus, they're seen standing in the dark, desolate realm of the creature's home, surrounded by demonic-looking creatures that seem more appropriate for Middle Earth or Mos Eisley spaceport. The movie handles Krampus as light-heartedly as possible, using his size and strength to diminish Dwayne Johnson who is usually the biggest guy in the room, but it also just feels like we've somehow wandered into an entirely different movie.

Don't get me wrong; I do want to like Red One. In most cases, this kind of movie is right up my alley, but it's a really good example of what the sum of a lot of things going wrong can add up to. The movie's saving grace (if I can even call it that at this point) is not only the presence of Chris Evans, but his performance. His snarky-yet-charming demeanor works for the movie, but his schtick also adds some needed amusement. However, his character's reactions - of complete confusion and befuddlement - pretty much mimic our own as the viewer. By the time he finally utters the phrase "What in the actual f---" which just barely gets cut off at the expletive, you kind of have to wonder why it took him so long to reach that point of frustrated disbelief. Evans is us in Red One, and while it's nice to have someone to sympathize with, it doesn't quite come off to the audience like we're "in" on the filmmaking team's joke. We're genuinely wondering what on earth these filmmakers were thinking here.

Again, I wanted to like Red One. After its "Sure, at this point, why not?!" kind of over-the-top ending, we're treated to a sequence that unmistakably captures "that Christmas feeling," and is likely to leave the viewer with a little warm, fuzzy holiday spirit. But is it too little too late? As you wander away from the theater doors (or the saftey of your own couch cushions), you're liable to attempt to figure out how you really felt about the movie, and you're either going to realize it was a hot mess, or you will have somehow found it to be a worthwhile holiday offering.

The content for Red One fits firmly within the PG-13 rating rules. There's an incomplete use of the "F" word, 8 uses of the "S" word, and an assortment of other colorful words and phrases (including a couple of "*ssh*le"). Evans' character Jack is humorously presented as a sort of glorified slacker who does morally questionable things as a tracker / hacker for the right price. We also see him as a pretty terrible father, as he gives the world's worst advice to his teenage son after he gets caught doing something shady at school. While he's a strangely likeable anti-hero, Jack is ultimately not the kind of guy we're supposed to root for (like the titular character in Fred Claus), but thankfully he does come around before the credits roll. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson plays the same character he's always played, but he seems on autopilot at this point. And the fact that Cal has lost hope in Christmas is kind of a downer. But with Johnson's tough guy persona, you can expect plenty of rock 'em, sock 'em action, and there are quite a few scenes where his character gets a chance to bust heads and tackle evil snow creatures. The dark nature of having the witch as the film's central villain, and then the semi-evil presence of Krampus, add a spiritual uneasiness to the movie. Yes, it's a good vs. evil story where good inevitably wins out in the end, thankfully, but the fact the film gets as dark as it does at certain points is altogether surprising and potentially unsettling for the more spiritually sensitive. Finally, there is no outright sexual content, but when the guys are at the beach, we see quite a few women in small bikinis - some of which reveal their entire butt. There's also a fleeting moment when Jack tries to profile a few groups of people and comments that one man blew his chance with another man while he's apparently hitting on him.

Red One may have aspects of it that scratch the itch for a fun, new Christmas film, but it ultimately fails to live up to its potential. Way darker than you'd expect it to be, way more reliant on computer effects than it needs to be (and what it does isn't particularly done very well), and just not a fun as it promises to be, Red One may be this holiday season's biggest cinematic disappointment. Perhaps a casual rewatch will be a more positive experience, but as it stands at just one IMAX viewing, you should probably just wave and let Red One fly on you by this Christmas.