Gives Christmas a backstory it didn't need

Here's the bad joke of Hollywood Christmas movies. They usually begin and end with a touch of old-fashioned Christmas cheer. But that's just a joke. In between, most people make it a point to get as far away from the Christmas spirit as possible. Instead, they exchange the new American spirit: vulgar, violent, full of fake fun and celebrating their own impudence. To understand the origins of the anti-Christmas Christmas film (“Jingle All the Way,” “Violent Night”), you would probably have to go back to a few films that are considered classics (although not by me): “A Christmas Story” and “Home Alone,” both eggnog glasses full of misanthropy.

However, I'm not sure a Hollywood film has ever started the season with less genuine Christmas spirit than “Red One.” Sure, JK Simmons plays Santa Claus (who gets kidnapped) and Simmons wins in his rumpled, old, wise innocence. Dwayne Johnson is his larger-than-life, lovable self as Santa's bodyguard (who wants to retire because he's having a crisis of faith). The strange thing about the film is that while it's somewhat ironic, it's not really a comedy. Directed with charmless energy by Jake Kasdan, “Red One” is also an action film; a kidnapping and rescue thriller in which toy store pantry doors are mystical portals; and an exercise in building the Christmas world as if that is what was missing at Christmas.

At the start, Simmons' Santa sits on his throne greeting a line of children at a mall, a place he considers to be the most soulful place in the world (which shows you how far we've come from “Jingle All the”). Way” – even Santa Claus is into capitalism now!). The hottest toy of the season that kids keep asking about is a video game called Vampire Assassin 4. We should smile at how un-Christmasy it sounds The Is. But “Red One” could almost be the film adaptation of Vampire Assassin 4. It's so busy and bloated, so replete with cheesy digital effects, that it generally conveys a sense of violent kitsch.

The first not-quite-funny “joke” of the film is that Santa’s entire operation is run like a U.S. military operation. Santa's codename is Red One. Johnson's Cal works for ELF – which stands for Enforcement Logistics and Fortification and means Cal scurries around like a Secret Service agent, barking orders into his wrist walkie-talkie. CF drones, Sno-Cats, a cargo plane: the film has little tinsel but a lot of equipment. And the dialogue is technically bombastic enough to sound like something out of a 1986 Dan Aykroyd comedy.

Of course it is also a buddy film. No, not Santa Claus and his bodyguard. (Once Santa is kidnapped, which happens early on, he's mostly out of the picture.) The buddies here who start to hate each other are Cal, who's been tasked with finding out Santa's whereabouts, and Jack (Chris Evans), a degenerate sports player and down-at-heel divorced father who is also something of a superhacker. He is tasked by nefarious powers around the world to use encrypted communications to uncover the hidden location of people and things, which he accomplishes effortlessly.

It was Jack's work that revealed Santa's exact location at the North Pole (under a dome, sort of like the Christmas shop version of the Pentagon). And so Santa Claus could be kidnapped by Grýla, an old witch played by the always welcome Kiernan Shipka, who I thought (and still think) since Mad Men was going to be a big star – and this film, shows why in his blunderbuss way. Grýla is a classic, nuance-free, sinister nemesis, straight out of a sequel to National Treasure. But there's a hint of anger in the way Shipka plays her. Your bad dream? To punish anyone who is on Santa's naughty list.

We meet Santa's reindeer, interchangeable oversized digital creations referred to as “girls.” Why should the reindeer be so big? And why should they all be female? This is the kind of “whatever” conceit that defines “Red One.” Cal and Jack head to Aruba just like that. On the beach, Cal amusingly changes size during a fight and the two must fend off an attack by wild snowmen. But that's just a pit stop. They end up in a medieval Star Wars cantina in Germany and try to save themselves from Santa's estranged half-brother, the giant goat-man troll Krampus (Kristofer Hivju). At this point you're either on board or (in my case) start looking at your watch.

The villains are shape-shifters, but the most important thing about “Red One” is that the entire film is a shape-shifter: exhausting action romp, slightly cheesy Christmas tale, buddy film, family reconciliation film – every quadrant and every demo must be served up. In the cinema, Christmas is no longer a holiday, but a concept that needs to be retrofitted. Do you hear the tinkling of those sleigh bells? Come on, it's nice weather for a shared cargo plane ride over the North Pole, through the supply cabinet portal.