It’s halfway to Christmas and even so you’re not ready to behold the confoundingly chaotic trailer for Red One. The and Dwayne Johnson holiday action movie directed by Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) is set for release on November 15 from Amazon MGM. Starting off with a swole Santa Claus (J.
K. Simmons) lifting weights (to keep those cookie calories down, presumably) with the help of the commander of the ELF Task Force—played by Johnson as “The Rock if he were Santa’s bodyguard”—isn’t much of a stretch for an action movie, sure. It’s more the incomprehensible series of plot slop that follows, which leaves us wondering what this is movie trying to be, outside of a Christmas version of Taken? The buff-butt snowmen fight scene on the beach is only the tip of the head-scratching choices here.
Take a look for yourself in the trailer below: We have so many questions! Just in this clip we get a jacked Santa being benched and kidnapped; Chris Evans (with dark hair to signal he’s a rebel) playing a guy who’s bothon the naughty list—but also an essential part of helping the Rock find his boss; magic that embiggens toys into functional real-world objects; a Krampus kink fight club; and those nightmare fuel snowmen with bodybuilder bods, including ice cream scoop butt cheeks that don’t melt on the beach. Somehow, this first look at Red Oneseemingly strips its holiday movie conceit of any Christmas spirit by leaning hard into the action. Young Rock’.