Hmm, let’s see; an action comedy starring Dwayne Johnson as the head of North Pole security, who teams up with a longtime member of Santa’s naughty list when St. Nicholas himself winds up getting abducted by a shadowy enemy? Yep, this sounds genuinely terribly and completely out of control, and you can bet that I and millions of other suckers have every intention of sitting through this one.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Red One, the upcoming Johnson vehicle with those exact holiday stylings as described, and then some. Indeed, beyond also roping the likes of Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, and J.K. Simmons into the mix — the latter of which will be suiting up as the jolly red joygiver himself — Red One will be going all out with a mercenary polar bear, a sort of underground empire run by Krampus, and some rather explosive Christmas magic, in a manner of speaking.
The best and also the worst part? MGM wants to take the precedent of reimagined holiday mythology and use it to spawn even more films for a full-blown action franchise, so if we all plug into this nonsense, they’re probably going to keep that unholy ball rolling.
But folks, we need to talk about those impossibly swole, horrifically-rendered CGI snowmen that are shown to go up against our heroes right around the 2:04 mark in the trailer above. The only thing scarier than Frosty’s uncanny descendants is the pitiful dialogue that will probably permeate the whole encounter; yes, Jack, it is disturbing! Thank you for spoon-feeding the audience’s own reaction to them ahead of time.
Red Notice will hit theaters on Nov. 15, for some reason.
Published: Jun 25, 2024 03:19 pm