NEW YORK (OSV News) – Why not make a Christmas-themed action flick starring Dwayne Johnson as Kris Kringle’s chief bodyguard? The answer to that question is revealed in “Red One” (Amazon MGM).

The attempt to put Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) in the middle of a lot of frenetic brawling and then wrap the whole thing up with a climactic sleigh chase leads to a hopelessly unbalanced tone in this ill-conceived holiday offering. Despite a conversion story for one of the main characters, moreover, this is far too hard-edged a production to be in any way family-friendly.

After St. Nick is kidnapped, Johnson’s Callum Drift and his team trace the breach of North Pole security that enabled the abduction to gifted but mercenary internet hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans). Since cynical Jack has, since childhood, denied the very existence of the Jolly One, however, it soon becomes clear that, for all his moral shortcomings, he was acting inadvertently.

Belatedly realizing what a catastrophe he’s helped bring about, Jack agrees to help Callum and his boss, Zoe (Lucy Liu), catch the real culprit. But straight-arrow Callum has taken an instant dislike to this shady scoundrel, and only agrees to team with him under orders from Zoe. So the newly-minted odd couple take up the chase.

Clues eventually lead them to one of Santa’s long-standing adversaries, a shape-shifting witch called Gryla (Kiernan Shipka). With Santa neutralized, she plans to ruin the impending holiday by punishing every person on his naughty list. Needless to say, that means a host of potential victims around the world.

The mayhem Gryla’s nefarious plot unleashes remains thoroughly stylized throughout and the values put forward in an almost preachy way by Chris Morgan’s script are respectable from a Judeo-Christian perspective. Thus Gryla is about retribution, but Santa, who sees the inner child in even the most wayward grown-up, is about mercy and forbearance.

As for Jack, isn’t it high time he worked on being a better father to his mildly misbehaving son, Dylan (Wesley Kimmel)? The lad’s mom, Olivia (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) — to whom, we learn, Jack was never married — certainly thinks so.

All well and good. Yet, cinematically, director Jake Kasdan never finds his footing. Nor does it seem likely that he ever could have, since early scenes alternately set in Aruba and at the site of Santa’s captivity may have viewers of a certain age imagining the effect of Father Christmas wandering into an episode of “Miami Vice.”

To put it another way, Dasher and Dashiell Hammett simply do not mix.

Additionally, “Red One” is a good reminder that not every Yuletide movie is geared toward youngsters. In this case, the screenplay’s vulgar vocabulary, while certainly not excessive by Hollywood standards, does flag the proceedings as strictly off-limits for kids.

The film contains considerable bloodless violence, fleeting partial nudity, references to a character’s out-of-wedlock birth, about a dozen instances each of mild swearing and crude language, at least one rough term and a couple of crass expressions. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults.  The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Maybe the answer to “Why did Warner Brothers barely release Clint Eastwood’s ‘final film?” was that it’s just not very good.

“Juror # 2” is competently cast, acted, shot and put together. But the script is melodramatic to the point of “hackneyed,” with a couple of unintentional laughs thrown in for good measure. I caught at least one continuity error, and that is about the only thing that really held my attention the rest of the way through this eye-roller of a Clint curtain call.

Others can grade great grandpa on the curve, but about the best you can say about this “Matlock” melodrama is that it’s not “Cry Macho,” even if it’s not any better than that the worst of the “final films” that preceded it.

Nicholas Hoult stars as a recovering alcoholic and expectant father who finds himself on a Savannah murder trial jury in which he has a very important important piece of evidence about the crime which the accused is seemingly certain to have commited.

Juror number two is pretty sure he himself did it.

Seeing as how another juror turns out to be a retired cop, you have to wonder if the “real” killer will get away with it. And you ponder the competence of the prosecuting attorney, running for DA (Toni Collette) and the public defender (Chris Messina) during voir dire (jury questioning and selection).

But that’s kind of the point. Eastwood’s conjured-up a condemnation of America’s justice system, and in his most Clint touch of all, leaves the rush-to-judgement “their only suspect” cops out of the equation altogether. Yeah Clint, prosecutorial misconduct along the Georgia coast always has a local policing element. Or didn’t you hear?

Jurors bicker over a verdict with the two Black jurors (Cedric Yarbrough and Adienne C. Moore) the quickest to vote “guilty” to get out of there and go home. The others, urged on by Justin (Hoult), start teasing-out other possible solutions to the mystery, and break the judge’s strict orders to not attempt their “own investigation.”

The most tained juror of all consults his AA sponsor (Kiefer Sutherland) who conveniently turns out to be another attorney. And the advice that counselor counsels is jaw-dropping, more dramatically convenient than real world ethical.

Coincidences like that abound as our guilty juror flashes back to that fateful night and tries to head off A) sending an innocent man to prison and B) to void letting suspicion fall on him as he attempts that.

Eastwood serves up a politically correct jury — white, Black, Asian, young, old, etc. — passing judgment on a case so convoluted and a screenplay so contorted that even the aspiring DA starts doing her own investigating. Because again, the COPS are left out of this altogether.

The strangers in the jury room leap into instant “old man” and “stoner” insults, this coming after the second or third reference to “this flawed process” and “imperfect it may be” in court. The worst thing anyone calls the DA is “a politician.” That’s the depth of the messaging here.

Further complicating our suspect juror’s attack of conscience and rationalizations about the other suspect being “a bad dude” is his “problem pregnancy” wife (Zoey Deutch) who needs him by her side once he’s saved the innocent man and covered his own tracks from within the jury room.

I was willing to go along with some of this as Eastwood goes through the motions of presenting the jury selection and the trial. He can’t reinvent the genre, so he doesn’t try.

But the picture isn’t playing and there’s little suspense and even less logic you start taking note of the abrupt shifts in the not-quite-caricatured characters and the plot. You hear a juror accuse another of changing his or her tune from what he said “just the other day” on the FIRST day of deliberations.

And you take comfort in Collette, Yarbrough, Simmons, Deutch and Sutherland, the stand-outs from the cast, as you pity those who aren’t as compelling as they might have been were they working for anybody other than “One Take Clint.”

Rating: PG-13, violent images, profanity

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Chris Messina,
Cedric Yarbrough, J.K. Simmons, Leslie Bibb, Adrienne C. Moore, Kiefer Sutherland and Zoey Deutch.

Credits: Directed by Clint Eastwood, scripted by Jonathan A. Abrams. A Warner Bros. release.

Running time: 1:54

Three major problems hamper Make a Girl as a film. The first is its very premise. Akira offhandedly makes Zero, a literal living, breathing girl, from nothing. Born a teenager, his lab-grown girl already knows at birth all the information needed to live in human society (like language skills and critical thinking)—even if she lacks the experience to use that data correctly. And to be clear, this isn’t an everyday occurrence in the world of this film—other people aren’t just going around making teenagers on a whim.

Despite this, no one bats an eye at the fact that Akira created life. His friends give little more than an exasperated sigh, and his scientist peers find her interesting but not much more. What he has done logically has world-shaking implications, but there’s no government interference or societal outcry. People just don’t seem to think it’s much of a big deal.

Stemming from the problems with the premise, we have the next major issue: the tone. Much of the film is silly and lighthearted, focusing on Zero adjusting to living in human society and trying to figure out her role as Akira’s girlfriend. It’s so lighthearted that, given the should-be-serious subject material, it rings false. It almost feels like there is some major twist in the works—like the whole world is fabricated or a dream or something similar. It’s incredibly challenging to suspend disbelief. Then comes the final climax, which is so intense and graphically violent that it feels like part of a different (and much more interesting) film.

And here we reach the final issue plaguing the film: its theme. When it comes down to it, Make a Girl is focused on the question of free will. Does Zero love Akira because she was designed that way, or are her emotions all her own? But more than that, how can she prove it one way or the other? That is the personal dilemma at the core of the film. The problem is that rather than truly develop and explore this conundrum, the film jumps directly to the most extreme way of testing it. And while it makes for an exciting, visceral climax, the movie does little thematically to lay the groundwork for such an overreaction.

Of course, the film isn’t all bad—even within the problems stated above are more than a few interesting elements. One interesting aspect of the film is that its hero and villain face the same struggles. Both are bashing their heads against a wall in an attempt to even start to understand the greatest scientific mind of the previous generation: Akira’s mother. Both are going to evermore extreme lengths to try and progress—to step out from the shadow of such a great woman. But the pressure is soul-crushing and leads both to do things they come to regret. When it comes down to it, their core problem is the same: neither can understand Akira’s mother’s thought process and thus can’t continue her work or even build upon it.

Another interesting development is its investigation of love. While romantic love is the catalyst, the film focuses on familial love as well. It also does some fun playing around with the idea of love triangles, childhood best friends, and the ways people use their roles in other people’s lives to fill the voids in their own. Basically, it explores how love can let you see the world in a new way—and can change your life to make you a more balanced and productive person in the process.

On the visual side, Make a Girl is a mixed bag. There are times when the 3D animated film truly does look like a traditionally animated film—however, the majority of the time, it does not. That doesn’t mean it looks bad, however. The more action-packed the scene, the more stunning the film becomes. On the other hand, some noticeable wide shots that are a bit odd. Despite the 3D models used in the film, the characters seem under-detailed. There are also some strange frame-rate drops in the animation.

The music is not bad, but it is definitely forgettable. I honestly can’t remember a single bar of it—or even a moment where the music stood out in the least—positively or negatively.

In the end, Make a Girl has an undercooked premise, inconsistent tone, and underexplored theme. The animation itself is likewise filled with ups and downs in the quality department. It is, simply put, a film with some interesting ideas but poor execution.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.