The first trailer for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Christmas movie Red One is finally here, and man, is it something. Chris Evans co-stars in this action-adventure about badass, buff Santa (J.K. Simmons) getting kidnapped. The North Pole’s head of security Callum Drift (Johnson) has to team up with a shady tracker Jack O’Malley (Evans) to bring back St. Nick and save Christmas. This is ostensibly a comedy, but everyone in the trailer for Red One (premiering November 15) is playing it dead serious, and not in a way that enhances the humor of the premise. The result is spectacular.
Red One was filmed way back in 2022 and was slated for a Prime Video release around Christmas 2023, which was delayed by the SAG-AFTRA strike. The film got pushed to November 2024 with a theatrical release, but the production had to contend with a ballooning budget and rumors that Johnson was kind of a jackass on set, including showing up seven to eight hours late for his call time. Amazon MGM Studios has touted a positive reaction to footage from the film showed at this year’s CinemaCon to a handful of journalists that were reportedly selected specially by Johnson’s publicist.
We at The A.V. Club weren’t among those privileged few journalists, but now that we’ve all seen some of the footage, it’s nearly impossible to pick our favorite parts. Nevertheless, we’ll try:
Reindeers get horny for The Rock: Not even 30 seconds into this trailer, Nick admonishes his reindeer—er, his “ladies”—for being a little too excited when they see The Rock. This is apparently a frequent occurrence. That’s all we care to learn about that, except we see one of them lick the dude’s face a little too much.
Chris Evans’ job is “he’s probably the best tracker in the world”: Chris Evans plays Jack O’Malley, “the best tracker in the world,” according to Lucy Liu. What exactly is a tracker and what has he tracked in the past? Who knows, but he’s apparently a “legend” at it. A legend with who, exactly? Santa’s workshop, of course! (For that matter, it’s unclear what role Liu and her bangs serve at the North Pole. Bonnie Hunt, whom you may assume is just here to track Santa’s weightlifting, is apparently Mrs. Claus.)
Jack is a level four naughty lister: Callum Drift does not want to work with Jack because he’s “NL4”—a.k.a., a “Level four naughty lister.” We know this because Jack is seen stealing actual candy from a baby (gross) and trying to use Santa’s magic technology to get himself a life-size Wonder Woman action figure (gross, but in a different way).
Lucy Liu saying “We need to prepare for the possibility of no Christmas”: To be honest, we need to know what it would look like in the world of Red One if there was no holiday to celebrate because a jacked St. Nick was abducted and Tweedledee and Tweedledum couldn’t rescue him. Alas, we know it won’t happen because you don’t hire The Rock and Chris Evans unless it’s to comically save the day. But it’s still ridiculously funny that Liu delivers the line so earnestly.
Krampus vs. The Rock: At the end of the trailer, Krampus gets into a fistfight with Callum, so The Rock has to act like he’s been punched hard. Does he do a good job of… doing his job? Not at all. On the plus side, he got Chris Evans to unconvincingly tell him he looks good.
Everything about the snowmen: The snowmen in this universe apparently operate like the icy bouncer in Disney’s Frozen. They’re gigantic, they have fangs (?), and they encounter Callum and co. on a sunny tropical beach for… some reason. Oh, and they slowly piece themselves back together while growling when they’re attacked. Brr!
The laugh lines with no jokes: There are a few obvious laugh lines built into this trailer. “That was… so disturbing,” Evans snarks after the snowman puts himself back together, and, “Yeah, you look… good!” he says after The Rock gets slapped by Krampus. These lines have the cadence of jokes and yet offer no humor.
It’s set in way too many places: The two-minute trailer wants us to desperately know that Red One is a globe-trotting, nay possibly space-trotting adventure. The chaotically edited footage transports us to a sunny beach with mutant snowmen, the starry skies, a magical holiday land, the icy North Pole, and some dark land where Krampus and other creatures exist. There’s no breathing room whatsoever.
Mashing the “Carol Of The Bells” up with Jay Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”: A slowed-down pop song being used for a trailer is hardly new. And the “Carol Of The Bells” is most certainly the most dramatic seasonal tune. But somehow we’ve landed at doing both things, making up the carol with Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” a song with an admittedly cool beat but one that seems to have little to do with the movie.
The fact that the trailer was released in June: Look, today is halfway to Christmas (as our news editor Drew Gillis helpfully reminded us), but it’s automatically funny to see a Christmas movie trailer in the summer. And then this apparent tentpole film isn’t even releasing on or particularly close to December 25? Instead, it premieres for our pleasure in the middle of November. Maybe they have high hopes it’ll put us in the holiday spirit for the next few weeks, and sometimes being delusional is healthy.
The whole trailer feels like a Hollywood prank: To be serious for one minute, Red One looks absurd and potentially entertaining, but it also feels like the industry is pulling a fast one on us. Is it a weird tax evasion scheme? (The movie’s budget is apparently $250 million dollars, yet they gave The Rock the same shirt he wears in all his other films). Maybe Hollywood is testing to see what passes these days as a Christmas IP, and how weird they can get with it. It’s a movie that doesn’t feel real at all… yet here we are.
This still of Santa getting kidnapped:
Enough said!