This review was originally published on November 6, 2024. Red One is now streaming on Prime Video.
There are many questions left unanswered in Red One, but the most pressing has to be: Is the Rock playing an elf or not? His character, Callum Drift, is definitely the head of an organization called ELF, which stands for Enforcement, Logistics, and Fortification (there are multiple cute little acronyms like that in this movie), and which is basically the North Pole’s answer to the Secret Service. Callum isn’t human and is hundreds of years old, and when he fights, he likes to shrink himself down to approximately half his usual size, a trick whose utility isn’t entirely clear, but that does support the whole elfin theory. And yet, if the obvious joke is that Dwayne Johnson is playing an unlikely 270…
