Film / Red One

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Red One is a 2024 Christmas Fantastic Action Comedy film directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Chris Morgan (The Fast and the Furious franchise). It stars Dwayne Johnson (who also produces), Chris Evans, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Nick Kroll, Kristofer Hivju, Bonnie Hunt, and J. K. Simmons.

The film follows the efforts of North Pole Head of Security Callum Drift (Johnson) to locate a kidnapped Santa Claus (Simmons) with the aid of human tracker and level four naughty lister Jack O'Malley (Evans). The film was released in the UK on November 6, 2024, and in Latin America on November 7; and was released November 15, 2024. Has no connection to Red Notice, a previous film produced by and starring Johnson.

Previews: Trailer👁 Image
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Red One contains examples of the following:

• Absence of Evidence: When Jack is taken by Grýla, Drift and Harlow realize that the fact that they can't detect the tracker means Jack must be at the North Pole, as that's the only location where the tracker wouldn't work.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Gryla has thirteen sons and doesn't seem to really care about them, seeing as she doesn't hesitate to put them in harm's way to protect her from the E.L.F. forces. She also threatens to test the Glasgefangnis on them at one point.
  • Jack is a neglectful parent to his son Dylan. He even admits that it's deliberate - he acknowledges that Dylan's (unseen) stepfather is a much better person than he is, so he thinks that Dylan would be much better off if he forgot about him and just thought of his stepfather as the only father figure in his life.
• The Ace: Cal's the best of what he does. There's a reason why he's been in charge of Nick's security for over five hundred years.
• Achilles' Heel: The snowman minions collapse into an inert pile if their carrot noses are removed.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Jack (Chris Evans) gets ambushed at his apartment by several M.O.R.A agents, fending them off while looking like something out of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
  • In her human form, Gryla is played by Kiernan Shipka, best known for playing the witch protagonist of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Gryla even appears in the show, portrayed by Heather Doerksen.
  • Krampus has special admiration for Gryla, who's strong enough to crush him in her giant ogress form. Not so far fetched for Tormund Giantsbane.
• Adam Westing: J. K. Simmons previously provided the voice of Santa five years prior in the 2019 Netflix film Klaus.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Played with. In Icelandic tradition, Grýla is usually depicted as a hideous, gigantic ogress, but here she is also a shapeshifting witch, allowing her to spend the majority of the film in the form of a petite, stunning young woman. She reverts back to her traditional ogress form for the final battle.
• Adaptational Curves: Nick as Santa Claus is significantly muscular than most takes on jolly old Saint Nick, as shown during his workout scene.
• Adaptational Slimness: While most versions of Santa Claus have round bellies, this Santa is much slimmer and more toned.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: This version of Grýla, in addition to being an ogress, is also a powerful witch and a shapeshifter. Her sons the Yule Lads are likewise depicted as shapeshifters.
• Adapted Out: Despite Gryla and the Yule Lads being the main antagonists, there is no sign or mentioning of their infamous pet the Yule Cat.
• Adult Hater: Cal is an adult example himself, funnily enough. Half a millennium of seeing kids grow up into greedy, selfish, and unpleasant adults has made Cal extremely cynical towards most of them.
• Advertised Extra: Despite being featured heavily in the film's advertising, Garcia's role in the plot isn't actually that big or important. He serves as Cal's Number Two in a few scenes at the beginning, then is Out of Focus until the climax so the plot can focus on the relationship between Cal and Jack.
• Advertising by Association: The trailer proclaims the film as "from the director of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle".
• Affably Evil: Sure, Krampus lives in a dark dungeon, keeps dragon-dogs as sentries, associates with a whole lot of Obviously Evil types, and lives to punish the wicked, but on his own home turf, Krumpusnacht is a non-stop party, and everyone seems to be having a good time (even those who lost a game of Krampusschlap).
• Affectionate Nickname: While Santa Claus is home, his family and friends refer to him as Nick.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Santa uses this route to get in to Apartment complexes that have no chimneys It helps that he can shrink down the size of a mouse.
• All Crimes Are Equal: The snow globes imprison everyone, regardless of the severity of their bad deed. An inversion then kicks in when Jack makes a commitment to do better, rather than doing any actual good deeds, though this has to do with the fact that you can't actually do good from within a glass prison.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Grýla sends Drift on a wild goose chase, making them think Nick has been spirited somewhere, causing them to leave the North Pole Complex undefended, since she needs the manufacturing capabilities there to make the enchanted globes.
• Amazon Chaser: Krampus reminisces fondly about Gryla's nineteen foot troll form and her fighting ability. Reinforced in the climax, where he not only praises her in her troll form before trying to fight her, but after being thrashed by her clearly enjoyed it on some level.
• Ambiguously Human:
  • Callum appears human (if a very large one, courtesy of Dwayne Johnson himself). His displays of magic are implied to be entirely due to artifacts he physically has on him, though he does mention he's hundreds of years old. When approaching Krampus, Callum told Jack to let him handle anything they find as mortals would set off alarms. Jack is confused because the entire time he thought Callum WAS human, and Callum just says he is not. That's all that is said about it.
  • We don't know precisely when Mrs. Claus and Nick married, so she could be a regular human woman whom Nick got together with relatively recently, or she could belong to the same immortal species as her husband, which seems likely. We never find out either way.
  • As with the North Pole characters, Zoe doesn't look visibly different but she seems to be more than just a baseline human.
• Angry Animalistic Growl: Being a bear, Garcia's usual way of voicing displeasure is roaring or growling, which he does when a lot meeting Jack for the first time.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • In the final act, when Santa is hurrying to deliver toys, he inexplicably does it backwards around the world, clearly starting with what is North America. There is even a map tracker showing them going east, up and down, across Africa and Europe. Given time-zones and the way the world spins, Santa should have started somewhere like New Zealand and then gone west.
  • The Netherlands is incorrectly named Holland when the simulations are done for Belgium and Holland (The Netherlands).
  • When Cal and Jack step out of the storage of the toy store, both the doorknob and light switch are clearly American. Also, the cemeteries are laid out differently in Germany like the one seen in the following scene.
• Artistic License – Military: Cal and Nick leave a mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and travel to an Air Force Base to depart. However, the fighter jets have "TY" written on their tails, which stands for Tyndall Air Force Base, which is just east of Panama City Beach, Florida. This is the F-22 Training Squadron based at Tyndall AFB.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Naturally; the trailer presents a film about Saving Christmas with two big-name action stars and plenty of fight scenes.
• Bad Humor Truck: The snowmen invade Aruba in a ratty old ice cream truck that rolls onto the beach from the sea. Also counts as a parody of Storming the Beaches.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Gryla uses a whip to force Nick's reindeer into pulling the sleigh for her when they refuse at first, showcasing her brutal, callous personality.
• Badass in Distress: Nick is certainly no slouch, seeing as he can complete a 500-rep weight lifting without breaking a sweat and has the magic required to know everything about every child on Earth. The movie still revolves around him being kidnapped by Gryla and needing to be rescued by Cal and Jack. He does regain points for dealing the final blow against Gryla after he recovers and awakens from the artificial coma she put him in.
• Badass Santa: Early in the film the audience is treated to Santa finishing a 500-rep weight lifting with Callum as his spotter, and it ends on a montage showing just what kind of extreme athleticism is required to complete Santa's Ride in a single night.
  Dylan: Santa is a beast!
• Bathos: Many of the more childish Santa terms like "Naughty list" are treated with serious dignity like classified government assets. This very much adds to the film's hilarity.
• Bear Hug: Garcia gives one to Jack when he is being uncooperative. It's just as painful as it looks.
• Berserk Button: Anyone threatening, belittling, or otherwise harming Nick will immediately find themselves on Cal's bad side. By extension, anyone making light or trying to corrupt Nick's genuinely benevolent cause of bringing joy to children is also not going to win any points with him. This is partially the reason why him and Jack butt heads so often, as Cal is disgusted by Jack's lack of respect for Christmas and Santa.
• Big Damn Heroes: Krampus arrives in the climax to fight back against Grýla to defend his brother, despite previously refusing to help Callum and Jack.
• The Big Guy: Garcia is this to the ELF-team, being a giant bear who towers even over Cal, himself an example of this trope. In the final battle against Gryla's sons, he singlehandedly takes out an entire group of them with no effort.
• Blatant Lies: Dylan off-handedly mentions his Christmas pageant to Jack when he picks him up from school, calling it "stupid" and claiming he doesn't really care whether Jack decides to show up or not. As his mother points out to Jack, this is very clearly not true. He wants his dad to show up but doesn't know how to ask him directly.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Santa hires Cal to run his security detail, even though he's quite physically adept himself.
• Brick Joke:
  • At one point in the movie, Cal mentions that Santa does not like macaroons. A montage of him enjoying cookies later in the story shows him taking a macaroon from a plate only to put it back immediately.
  • Upon witnessing Cal's ability to transform toys into their real, functional forms, Jack asks the Aruba toy store's owner if he has a Wonder Woman action figure before being told that it's not how that works. Before the climax, after Jack and his son Dylan manage to break free of their snowglobe prisons, Cal and Harlow find them, and—wary that he might be one of Grýla's shapeshifting sons—the former affirms Jack's true identity by referring back to his desire for a Wonder Woman action figure.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When Jack is first questioned by MORA, he asks them to be more specific about what Harlow is talking about because he can think of a dozen things that he'd done in the recent past that might inspire someone to black-bag and interrogate him.
• Cain and Abel: Initially Krampus is the Cain to Santa's Abel, tho seems briefly shaken by being reminded that Santa is still is brother when asked for help. He averts it in the climax, fighting Gryla to save Nick.
• Capture and Replicate: Mrs. Claus, along with the entire E.L.F. team, are captured and locked away beneath the North Pole as part of Gryla's invasion of the old base. One of Gryla's sons takes her place but is sussed out almost immediately by Cal.
• Casting Gag: Bonnie Hunt, who plays Mrs. Claus, appeared in 1995's Jumanji. Director Jake Kasdan directed the film's sequels.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The tracker planted in Jack by Director Harlow allows Harlow and Drift to find Jack when he's taken by Grýla.
  • Santa's reindeer call is what ultimately defeats Grýla, summoning his reindeer to knock her into her own snow globes.
  • Some of the toys Callum grabs from the toy store end up being useful later in the film, like the Robots.
• Company Cross-References: Warner Bros. Pictures is in charge of International distribution of the film, and owns DC Comics, who in turn own Wonder Woman. Diana's superhero identity is brought up multiple times during the film.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: When one of Grýla's sons is disguised as Mrs. Claus, Cal immediately figures out that something is wrong due to her baking macaroons for her husband, which he evidently dislikes.
• Crazy-Prepared: While Jack officially never asks for his buyers' names, he has found ways to discreetly hack their accounts if anyone ever tries to avoid paying him, allowing him to help track the person who paid him for the information that led to the North Pole assault in the first place.
• Creator's Culture Carryover:
  • The agencies running things in the North Pole seem to take their time relative to the United States. This is noticeable in the countdown to launching Santa on his yearly trek, as they're clearly counting down to Christmas Eve... in the United States. Which actually means that they would have logically found Santa too late for him to fulfill his mission to places that are ahead of the US timezone-wise, like New Zealand, Australia, and even the whole of Europe. Most notably, when they do find Santa and get him going, they clearly start with North America and work ''backwards'' across the globe, which again means that he is in fact too late for most other countries.
  • The film also acts like Santa delivers to the whole world, and in one night, when this is of course not even remotely true. Aside from many countries and/or cultures not even celebrating Christmas, many other Christian Christmas celebrations are on different nights than 25th December: Orthodox Churches are usually 7th January, whilst several central European countries are on 6th December, the eve of Saint Nicholas' day (and more minorly, some northern European countries have the celebrations and gift-giving on Christmas Eve).
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite the fact that Jack is perpetually broke due to his gambling problems and generally a loser in his personal life, he is insanely good at his job and competent enough in a fight to take out a whole squad of trained M.O.R.A. agents.
• Curse Cut Short: The broker in Aruba is forcefully turned into Gryla's Mouth of Sauron in front of Callum and Jack, with Zoe watching all this on a live feed. The whole sequence ends with Jack yelling "what in the ACTUAL FU-" when Zoe cuts the feed.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Krampus may act antagonistic at first but helps the heroes and reconciled with his brother at the end of the film.
• Disappeared Dad: A throwaway line by one of his cousins in the prologue confirms that Jack's father is this. Jack himself is barely doing better in the present day; he's in his son Dylan's life, but clearly not as much as Dylan would like him to be.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Drift affirms that Grýla's plan to "punish the naughty" amounts to this, as she would be going after people who committed any kind of act that would qualify as "naughty" even if it's something as simple as jaywalking.
• Do Wrong, Right: Jack's first conversation with his son is about what Dylan did to get in trouble, and what actions he should have taken to not get caught.
• Does Not Like Spam: Cal mentions that macaroons are the only cookies Nick absolutely doesn't like. Hearing Mrs. Claus, Nick's wife of many years mentioning making macaroons for her husband's return clues Cal in that something is very wrong at the North Pole; indeed, "Mrs. Claus" is actually one of Gryla's shapeshifters that have seized control of the workshop. During the ending montage, Nick takes a cookie from every plate set out for him. When one of these cookies turns out to be a macaroon, he immediately puts it back.
• Epiphanic Prison: The snow globes are meant to imprison the Naughty. As such, when Jack makes an honest commitment to try to be a better person, he no longer counts as Naughty and is let free.
• Evil Stole My Faith: Callum is losing the Christmas Spirit after over four hundred years because of how the naughty list gets longer and longer every year, which is why he puts in his papers early in the film. At the end, he gets it back and asks Santa to let him stay on.
• Eye Scream: Jack punches a cyclops troll in his one eye while escaping from Krampus's lair.
• Fanservice Extra: A few bikini-clad women are seen in Aruba, often walking away from the camera so their backsides are prominently visible.
• Faux Affably Evil: For most of the film, Gryla puts on a polite facade, but it's clear it's all an act to hide the truly sadistic monster just under the surface. After Cal, Jack, and Dylan manage to stop her plan, she turns into her true ogress form and tries to kill Cal despite the fact that it does not help her plan at all.
• Foreshadowing: Krampus talks about how, when he used to date Grýla, she was better-looking as an 80-foot ogre with "the skin of an elephant" and multiple tails. This is the form she takes in the climax to fight the heroes after her plan to fly Santa's sleigh fails.
• Friend to All Children: Naturally. Nick's purpose is to bring joy and laughter to children and he loves his job. His idea of relaxing is to play Mall Santa in his off-time so he can interact with kids.
• Fun with Acronyms: The organization in charge of policing the supernatural world and upholding The Masquerade is known as M.O.R.A (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), and they work closely with Santa Claus's E.L.F. (Enforcement, Logistics and Fortification), which is headed by Callum Drift.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop:
  • Invoked when Jack and Callum track down the broker, and Callum is the one ready to pop his head open while Jack has to rein him in.
  • Zoe acts as the good cop to Cal's bad cop, being the one more willing to negotiate with Jack instead of simply threatening or beating him into compliance. She also respects Jack's skills as a tracker and is more willing to hear him out than Cal is, who simply dismisses Jack as a no-good Naughty Lister.
• Good Is Not Soft: While Callum is willing to talk things out before resorting to violence and is generally a nice person if you don't push his buttons, he also has a limit to his patience and won't hesitate to beat the crap out of people who won't see reason. His very first scene has him implicitly threaten a Bad Influencer who was cutting the line to Nick with violence if he doesn't get to the back and let the children whose turn it actually was through.
• Grandpa, What Massive Hotness You Have: This Santa is trimed and toned, because Christmas Eve means strenuous physical exertion. Mrs. Claus isn't bad either.
• Happily Married: Mrs. Claus and Nick are a very loving and harmonious couple and she has always supported his work. This helps Cal figure out that the Mrs. Claus he has on the line later on is a fake, because "she" is baking Nick macaroons, the only type of cookie he hates.
• Harmless Freezing: Played with. The broker is frozen solid by the Snowlems, but it's indicated they'll be able to thaw him out. The problem is that doing so safely will take longer than they have, so he's of no help.
• Headless Horseman: Jack's first face-to-face encounter with the supernatural is almost bumping into the Horseman's fire-breathing steed as the Headless Horseman himself is brought in for questioning over Santa's disappearance. His flaming jack-o'-lantern is carried off in some sort of containment separately.
• Heel–Face Turn: Despite Krampus acting as a minor antagonist earlier in the movie, he shows up in the climax to help the heroes against Grýla.
• Hidden Depths: It gradually becomes clear that there is some good beneath Jack's unpleasant personality. While introduced as an absent and neglectful father to Dylan, when Cal asks why this is he explains that he is fully aware of his deficiencies as a parent and a person, and that he keeps his distance from Dylan because he thinks his son's stepdad is a better father and influence that he could ever be.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Santa's prison is in the support tunnels underneath his original workshop in the North Pole.
• Historical Domain Character: Santa is explicitly referred to by Zoe as literally being Saint Nicholas of Myra, one of the real-life figures who inspired the Santa Claus mythos.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Grýla, twice over.
  • By hiring Jack in order to locate Nick, she ironically ensures her own downfall. Not only does Jack's involvement lead to the North Pole finding out that she was the one responsible for the kidnapping, her kidnapping Jack as well to keep him from meddling in her plans any further lets Cal and Zoe deduce that she's hiding beneath the North Pole since that's the only place Jack's tracker wouldn't work.
  • She is ultimately defeated by being knocked into the cart of her own snow globes, imprisoning her in one. This suggests that when she ordered that a globe be made for everyone on the naughty list, it never occurred to her that she might be on it as well.
• Horns of Villainy: Krampus and many of his followers sported them. Subverted in that he's not evil, just a jerk who had a major falling out with his brother over how to run their operation. In the modern era, he stays out of M.O.R.A.'s and Santa's business and they stay out of his.
• Hot-Blooded: Cal is deeply intimidating when upset, and he's shown getting upset easily. He's also pretty quick to violence, such as refusing to believe Jack knows nothing and believing he just needs to beat it out of them.
• How Can Santa Deliver All Those Toys?: Being much more athletic than his build might suggest, Sizeshifting, and a tricked-out sleigh. Oh yes, and a really good support team and well-oiled delivery system.
• Ignorance Is Bliss: Jack explains that he basically chooses not to explicitly question who his potential buyers are for this reason, as if he doesn't know who they are, others can't force him to talk to give up information he doesn't possess.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: Santa is, as with most depictions, a connoisseur of biscuits and cookies. When Callum notices Jack's tracker has gone dark, with it only being invisible within the North Pole Complex, he has Director Harlow call the North Pole, for Mrs. Claus to answer, clearly panic baking. He asks what she just made, for her to say she just finished a tray of macaroons. Callum immediately goes on high alert, declaring she's fake because he knows that Santa, for all he loves biscuits and cookies, hates macaroons.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Nick is presented as this, able to see the good in everyone, even if they don't see it in themselves or other people see it in them.
• Indecisive Parody: The movie leans into a The Fast and the Furious / Men In Black twist on the Saving Christmas plot, but the Wunza Plot with Callum and Jack is played entirely straight along with the interconnected mythology and most of the action scenes.
• Jerkass: Jack isn't a Level 4 Naughty Lister for nothing. In his introductory scene as an adult, he makes a douche out of himself at every chance he gets, down to actually stealing candy from a baby. He does grows out of this as the movie goes on.
• Jerkass to One: Garcia has friendly interactions with everyone in the cast who isn't named Jack. To be fair, Jack was indirectly responsible for Nick getting kidnapped, so Garcia's animosity toward him is understandable.
• Kick the Dog: Among other things, Jack literally steals a baby's lollipop just to be a dick.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Jack steals cookies and milk left out for Santa as a child, a lady's coffee as an adult, and goes so far to as to actually steal candy from a baby. He seems to stop after his Sticky Fingers put him and Cal in serious danger when steals something that belongs to Krampus.
• Knight Templar: In Gryla's opinion, Nick is being too soft with the naughty of the world, at the expense of the nice. She plans to punish everyone on the Naughty list once and for all so the Earth can be a nicer place, even if that entails forever trapping people in a Glasgefangnis.
• The Krampus: Krampus is depicted as this in the flesh as Santa's adopted brother, with whom he started "the business", but had a falling out a long time ago over their difference of opinion about punishing the naughty, as Nick saw it as their job to merely encourage better behavior.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After Nick's reindeer bear the crap out of Gryla, she ends up trapped in a Glasgefangnis, just like she planned to do to millions of people all over the world and had actually done to Jack, Dylan, and at least one other person.
• Like Father, Like Son: Like his dear old dad, Dylan is a very skilled hacker, to the point he can infiltrate his school's systems and meddle with attendance lists. If his story about sabotaging a friend for allegedly trying to spend time with a girl Dylan likes is any indication, he's also inherited some of his dad's selfishness and paranoia.
• Long List: According to Cal, the naughty list had been getting bigger every year, and at one point he says that the naughty and nice lists combined are the size of Rhode Island.
• Lovable Rogue: Downplayed for Jack, but although he's a very selfish criminal he always makes sure not to directly hurt anyone. He's also very charming (being played by Chris Evans surely helps). Over the course of the movie, he also becomes more and more likable. It's also stated he avoids his son not to hurt him and later reconciles his relationship with him.
• Made of Iron:
  • Cal can take a lot of punishment while retaining little to no injuries, such as being tossed around by one of the Snowmen, and taking a slap from Krampus and coming out of it merely a bit dazed instead of knocked out.
  • Jack takes quite a few brutal hits from supernatural creatures, most notably Gryla in her true form, with enough force to destroy parts of the environment, and walks away from each with at most some groaning and grimacing. Considering the others surviving this treatment are explicitly supernatural while Jack is a physically normal and lanky human, that's pretty impressive.
• Manchild: Jack is often criticized for his immaturity. This is further played when Cal eventually sees him in the physical form of his inner child.
  Jack: Yeah, well, you know, growing up is tough.
  Olivia: Is that why you're avoiding it?
  Jack: I walked right into that.
• Manly Facial Hair: Nick has the traditional beard of Santa Claus and is also established as a total badass without whom the entire Christmas operation couldn't even run.
• Meaningful Name: Jack's first scene in the film is literally stealing candy from a baby. He's also a cynical, nigh-misanthropic Jerkass and cyberthief-for-higher who has a rather frosty attitude toward Christmas. Justified, as for most of the movie he's an absolute jackass.
  • Given the mischievous nature and the general theme of the movie, his first name could also be an allusion to Jack Frost.
• A Minor Kidroduction: Jack is introduced as a very cynical and profit-oriented child, making his cousins pay him in sweets to prove that Santa isn't real, then taking the milk and cookies originally meant for Santa just to drive the point home that he's on the Naughty List for a reason..
• Misplaced-Names Poster: One poster has Dwayne Johnson in the correct position, while J. K. Simmons is front and center and yet his name is placed to the right. Another picture has Simmons now sitting under the title and names, while Johnson, Chris Evans, and Lucy Liu got rotated.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Some of Santa's security detail includes penguins. Remember that Santa's workshop is at the North Pole.
• Mission Control: Mrs. Claus supervises the preparation and loading of Santa's sleigh.
• Moody Mount: The reindeer are gentle as kittens around Santa's team, but they do not like Grýla and her henchmen.
• Muggles Do It Better: This is what kicks off the plot: The North Pole Complex's magical concealment is utterly impervious to any sorcery Grýla might try to use to find it, but non-magical seismological detection equipment can be used to pinpoint its location any time the dome is opened, which is why Jack is hired through an intermediary at the start of the film to hack the grid.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Invoked when Cal notes to Jack that if anyone but Nick tried to read the list even once it would make their heads explode, to say nothing of how it would take a considerable amount of time to get through it on that one read, and yet Nick is able to check it twice and still do everything else.
• Mysterious Employer: Invoked by Jack telling Eve that he never knows who hires him for any job as it's all done online through multiple shell companies and servers. "That way, in case someone, say you, comes asking, I can't tell them anything." Eve thus realizes Jack honestly has zero idea he was used to kidnap Nick. That said, Jack does at least insert a "digital tracker" on his employer just to make sure he's not double-crossed on payment.
• N.G.O. Superpower: Shortly after Jack is recruited it's revealed that the governing body centered at the North Pole is M.O.R.A., Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority. They basically uphold The Masquerade and All Myths Are True but kept under wraps to the general public, their operation is heavily managed by anthropomorphized animals and they also bring up long-ago events based on German and Icelandic tales. It's implied Santa was one of the core founders, and his original small hut remains on display in the center of a verifiable metropolis.
• Nice Guy: While at times a bit snarky, Nick is a benevolent and kind person all the way through and genuinely enjoys his job.
• No Name Given: Mrs. Claus is only referred to as her namesake or by her codename Partridge, with her first name never being revealed.
• No-Sell:
  • Callum's first attempt during the slapping contest with Krampus has no visible effect on the being.
  • Subverted during the battle against the snowmen, using a flaming grill on a snowman just slows it down until it can shape-change to absorb the damage, like the T-1000.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent:
  • Gryla, a witch from Icelandic folklore, speaks with an American accent.
  • In a film full of American accents, Krampus' actor uses his natural Norwegian one to play a character from German folklore.
• Not Me This Time: Cal and Jack go to see if Krampus is involved with Gryla's plans—he's not, but he does give them an important clue in that she took an old gift to him back with her which ends up being the linchpin of her plan, and seemed to have some idea of what she was going to do.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: While Gryla claims that she wants to bring good to the world by punishing the naughty, there are hints that she is mostly using this as an excuse to fuel her sadism, given that she enjoys mocking her enemies and savors their apparent helplessness against her. Her former lover Krampus broke up with her because she enjoyed punishing the naughty a little too much for even his own tastes. Given that she is imprisoned inside a Glasgefangnis by the end, Gryla herself is ironically naughty enough to be a prisoner and likely remorseless enough to remain so for eternity.
• Number Two: Garcia is in charge when Cal's not available and is always ready to rush to his commander's side for whatever he may be needed for.
• One Last Job: The biggest mission of Callum's career starts two days before his planned retirement.
• One-Winged Angel: In the film's climax, when pressed, Grýla changes into her true form when she climbs back up onto the runway to fight Jack and Callum. In this form, she stands eighteen feet tall and has two whiplike tails. In sheer physical strength, she has even other magical beings completely outclassed.
• Only in It for the Money: Jack works for whoever pays him with little thought to the damage he could or has already caused. When Zoe offers to pay him for using his abilities to help him find Nick, Jack's first reaction is to demand triple of what his last contractor paid him instead of the double she was willing to give.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Nick is staunchly against harming children in any way, which is why he was furious upon finding out that Krampus was making a Naughty list and punishing the children on it. Their fight over it was so bad, they ended up splitting for good.
  • The first thing Jack does after seeing Dylan get sucked into one of Gryla's snow globes is to grab one himself in hopes that he'll be transported to wherever his son has been taken.
• Paper Tiger: The Karmanian Death Mercs. Despite their reputation making Jack wary of dealing with them, Cal effortlessly manhandles them; and they make no attempt to help the two protect their employer from the snowmen.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In the climax, despite being petite compared to Cal and Jack, Gryla manages to toss them around like ragdolls and barely flinches when hit. Justified, since her slim human appearance is only a disguise, and her strength is rather proportionate to her true form as an oggress.
• Plot Hole: Hiding in the tunnels beneath the original workshop and using the multiplicator that was there was obviously part of Gryla's plan. If she knew about these issues of the North Pole base, it does not make sense that she did not know the location and needed Nick to hack into the seismography network to find it.
• Portal Network:
  • The supply closets of all toy stores are magically connected this way, allowing North Pole agents to travel the world instantaneously.
  • Similarly, Krampus has magical portals in the mausoleums of cemeteries.
• Power Glows: The reindeer have glowing gold antlers when they are in flight mode, and their hooves give off a trail of light similar to the aurora borealis.
• Power Perversion Potential: Upon seeing Callum's ability to turn toys into their real, functional counterparts, Jack asks the toy store clerk in Aruba if they have any Wonder Woman dolls before Callum tells him that isn't how it works.
• Pun-Based Creature: M.O.R.A. can navigate cyberspace with its own department of trolls. These are actual trolls.
• Race Lift: While Santa Claus is often portrayed as being white while being confirmed to be Saint Nicholas of Myra counts as this as Saint Nicholas of Myra was born in what is now modern day Turkey and was most likely olive skinned. (Though Saint Nicholas himself has been portrayed as white as much as Santa Claus himself.)
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Zoe, the leading figure in M.O.R.A. is also a top fighter, as demonstrated when she participates in final battle against Gryla's sons and cleans house.
• Reality Warper: The device Callum wears on his arm is a small scale version of this. As an example, it can take a Hot Wheels car, which is basically a metal and plastic mold, and make it bigger and give it a working engine, rubber tires, etc. Callum even refers to it as changing the "Reality" of the object.
• Really 700 Years Old: This seems to be common among the mythological creatures. Santa and Callum casually mention that they have been doing their jobs for centuries, to the point where Callum considers a 300-year-old to be young. Also, Krampus and Grýla are supposed to be around the same age as Santa. Given that Nick is Saint Nicholas of Myra, who traditionally said to have been born in 270 AD, this makes them a Silver Fox of 1,754 years old as of 2024.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Kidnapping aside, Zoe is willing to give Jack the benefit of the doubt that he truly didn't know what he did by selling out Nick's location and even employs him herself to find Nick again, under the rather reasonable condition that he wears a tracker so he won't just bounce before they have Nick back.
• Resized Vocals: When Callum shrinks while fighting off the snowmen, his voice becomes slightly higher-pitched.
• Santa Claus: Nick is the man, the myth, the legend, and the only one of his kind. The trailer lays it all out: Santa has been kidnapped and the plot of the film centers on his rescue.
• Santa Clausmas: The religious aspect of Christmas is never mentioned, though Nick is explicitly a saint, and the annual distribution of gifts is some kind of acknowledgement of the good in everyone.
• Santa's Naughty and Nice List:
  • The Naughty List is revealed to have originated with Nick/Santa's adoptive brother Krampus, and his punishing those on the list led to the brothers falling out and Krampus being cast out.
  • Callum, the commander of Santa's personal guard, Took a Level in Cynic after years on the job due to more people being on the Naughty List than the Nice List with each passing year, which makes working with Level-Four Naughty Lister Jack a challenge.
  • Gryla seeks to punish those on the Naughty list for even the smallest offenses by imprisoning them in her snow globes forever.
• Satellite Character: We only get to know Mrs. Claus through her relationship to Nick.
• Saving Christmas: The possibility of no Christmas is discussed should Santa not be saved in time. Jack asks if there isn't some 'vice-Santa' they could bring in to do the job in Nick's absence, but Cal affirms that the magic that makes Nick Santa is unique to him.
• Schmuck Bait: Krampus has a pile of gold coins outside his castle, which Cal explains are offerings to him. Taking one instantly summons his guards to arrest the thief (and also activates his sleigh's fire and audio as a kind of alarm). Naturally, Jack falls for it.
• The Scourge of God: Punishing the wicked is her job, but Grýla has grown impatient and wants to clear off the entire naughty list at once. Anyone on the list deserves to be removed from the world, no matter how small the offense.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Grýla is defeated when she gets trapped inside one of her own globes. Since the globe is meant to keep anyone naughty sealed inside, it's unlikely she will ever get out anytime soon.
• Seen It All: As the director of an organization dealing with all manner of supernatural creatures and events there's not much than can shock Zoe or make her lose her composure. She doesn't even flinch while leading Jack past the Headless Horseman's flaming and barely restrained steed.
• Sherlock Scan: No matter how hung over Jack may be, he has a keen eye for details, which allows him to spot the squad of M.O.R.A. agents waiting for him at his apartment, and later to identify the broker's security detail in Aruba down to their nationally.
• Shown Their Work: Callum uses feminine pronouns for the reindeer, all of whom still have their antlers in December. Not only are reindeer the only species of deer in which both sexes have antlers, but females retain their antlers during the winter months while males shed them in late fall.
• Sizable Snowflakes: The killer snowmen who come out of the ice cream truck on a tropical beach are armed with giant snowflakes they use as shurikens.
• Sizeshifter:
  • Nick shrinks himself and the presents down when entering chimneys, and expands them to their regular size under the tree.
  • Callum can shift between his regular size and the size of a small child while retaining the same strength and mass. Similarly, Santa demonstrates the ability to shrink down to whatever size is necessary to fit through chimneys, vents, or whatever points of entry into a home are available.
• Skeptic No Longer: Jack doesn't believe Santa Claus originally, but he becomes this after being kidnapped by MORA and by the film's end.
• Snowlems: Grýla sends a trio of living snowmen of the giant, violent variety after the broker she used as the middleman to hire Jack.
• Something Only They Would Say: Cal verifies that Jack is indeed who he says he is (and not one of Grýla's shapeshifting sons) by referring back to his desire to obtain a Wonder Woman action figure.
• Somewhere, a Mammalogist Is Crying: The reindeer resemble the extinct Irish elk👁 Image
  instead of actual reindeer.
• Speak of the Devil: Grýla is able to hear when her name is spoken anywhere in the world and by whom, even if it's mispronounced, enabling her to retaliate against whoever uttered her name immediately. The population of the North Pole usually gets around this by referring to her as "The Witch". A broker who dealt directly with Gryla wrote her name in the sand to tell Cal and Jack who hired him, only for Jack to thoughtlessly speak the name aloud several times out of curiosity, enabling Gryla to send her snowman minions to silence of kill him.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • After their chat with Grýla, Jack notes that what she said is less important than what she didn't say: she didn't ask for anything, which means she has no intention of giving Santa back.
  • Near the end of the film, Callum does this when Director Harlow scoffs at the possibility of the North Pole Complex having been breached since she's been talking to the people there all night. He asks to be patched through to Mrs. Claus, who claims she's been baking macaroons for Santa...except Santa hates macaroons, meaning it's not Mrs. Claus.
• Stepford Snarker: Dylan acts like your typical Mouthy Kid but it's clear underneath the snarky facade he's trying to reach out to his father, possibly by imitating his Deadpan Snarker tendencies and is rather disappointed and sad that Jack seemingly has no interest in having a father-son-relationship with him.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Jack and Krampus are much better at predicting the Witch's movements and motives than Callum and Nick are, due to Jack's paranoia and Krampus's agreement that naughty kids need to be punished.
• Super Wrist-Gadget: Callum's vambrace serves as a communicator, can turn toys real, and grants him super-strength.
• Taking Candy From A Baby: Jack quite literally steals a lollipop from a toddler in the park as he walks by to cap off his heist at the beginning of the film.
• Talking Animal: A significant portion of the North Pole's population includes sapient, talking animals, most prominently Agent Garcia, a talking polar bear.
• Took a Level in Cynic: By the start of the movie, Cal admits to Nick that he's quitting because he's unable to see the good in adults anymore and doesn't really believe it exists, seeing as the Naughty List has been growing every year despite all of Nick's hard work.
• Toy Transmutation: Inverted with Callum's vambrace, which can real-shift toys into their working counterparts. He mostly uses it for cars, but also shifts a living chicken out of a rubber one on a keychain, and is able to turn toy Rock'em Sock'em Robots into real robots. He never does use the Slinky and the Monopoly set he picks up with them (presumably he wanted the latter for the play money that was inside).
• Trademark Favorite Food: Nick's favorite is milk and cookies, obviously, given that he's Santa Claus, it's justified.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Although Jack is responsible for providing the information that enabled the villains to kidnap Santa (and therefore give Gryla the means to imprison everyone on Earth), he was completely unaware of the potential consequences and treated it as no different to his other jobs.
• Villain Override: Gryla remotely possesses and speaks through a go-between from thousands of miles away. The process appears very painful and leaves the man suspended in place at an impossible angle, but he seems fine once released.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Grýla is portrayed as this. She plans to send out billions of snow globes that will trap naughty people, leaving only the good and nice. The thing is she plans to do this to everyone who has done something bad, which, as pointed out by Cal, is practically the whole world. She's also a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist, as she happily focuses on the torment the punishment will bring. She also attempts to kill Cal in the climax, despite his death not all helping to her plan, which she lampshades.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Aaron Able, the first name on Santa's naughty list, gets imprisoned by Grýla as a test run, and we never see whether he got out.
• Wicked Witch: Gryla is the Christmas Witch of Icelandic folktales, a malevolent entity that once punished children who misbehaved around Christmas time. By the film's present, she plans to expand her punishments to naughty adults as well.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Despite being possibly the physically strongest member of Nick's security, Agent Garcia, along with the rest of E.L.F. at some point gets overpowered, locked away and presumably replaced with a doppelganger until the finale.
  • Krampus is shown as an extremely formidable individual, able to remain conscious after taking a punch from Cal even when empowered by his vambrace. In the climactic showdown, Grýla tosses him around like a ragdoll.
• World's Strongest Man: Krampus' favorite game involves letting people try to slap him hard enough to knock him out, and then actually doing so to them when they fail. Only Cal manages to barely get through one hit from him (and it's a near thing) and he's only beaten when Jack sneaks him his Sizeshifting device. In the climax, Gryla beats the heck out of him, subverting this.
• Wunza Plot: One's a human tracker who can only see the bad in people and didn't believe in Santa as a kid, the other is the head of Santa's security force who can't see the good in adults and is about to retire. Together they must fight an evil Christmas witch that has kidnapped Santa before she traps every naughty lister in a magic snow globe.