Dwayne Johnson has established himself as one of Hollywood's biggest box office draws,
with two decades of film hits.
And his all-new film "Red Notice" has all of the elements that makes us love him so
well, from heart pounding action sequences to hilarious banter.
"Oh my God, you're like a well dressed wall."
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to ruin the mission."
"Well, mission accomplished.
Find the print"
Throughout Johnson's many movies, there are some common threads that tie his filmography
together.
But we're talking about more than the explosions, the cocked eyebrows, and the heroically framed
smoldering looks.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"What just happened?"
"Um, you just smoldered."
There are some smaller, more signature details that make it into many of his movies as well.
If you pay close attention, you might pick up on some fun trends that can be found throughout
his films.
There's no doubt that Johnson's "Red Notice" character, FBI Special Agent John Hartley,
is grossly underestimated by everyone around him.
From his unlikely partner in crime, Ryan Reynolds' Nolan Booth, to the people he works with,
almost no one in the film understands who he really is until he spells it all out for
them.
"You don't know me, Booth."
"You have no idea what I'm capable of."
"Okay… thank God you're here!"
That's something you'll see in most of his characters.
His duplicitous Agent 23 in "Get Smart" was hiding some dark secrets, while Raymond Gaines
in "San Andreas" was grappling with an unthinkable personal tragedy.
Sometimes they're physically underestimated, like with John Matthews from "Snitch" and
Will Sawyer in "Skyscraper" while other times they seem like a tough guy but have a surprisingly
tender heart beneath the muscle -- like Mitch Buchannon from "Baywatch."
In all his movies -- "Red Notice" included -- Johnson's characters are about so much
more than meets the eye.
"That's called foreshadowing."
"I know what it's called."
"I was just making sure."
"I know what it's called."
"You don't look like an English major."
"Shut up."
A lot of Johnson's movies also include some seriously self-deprecating jokes about his
towering size.
"And you, look at you.
I mean, granted, it's not your fault.
But you're too obvious.
You stick out, like balls on a bulldog, dangling down in all the wrong places."
Nolan Booth also routinely riffs on Hartley's muscles and baldness throughout "Red Notice,"
and fans can find a lot of quality jokes about both of those subjects scattered throughout
Johnson's filmography.
In "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," for example, his character Hank has a running
joke about the peacocking potential of pec-popping.
"What is that?"
"That is the pec pop of love."
In "Pain & Gain," his character Paul Doyle gets pestered for workout and diet tips constantly.
And in the "Jumanji" films, Johnson's character Bravestone is a video game avatar whose muscle-bound
body players are totally psyched to discover themselves in.
"What the?"
Put simply, one of the reasons Johnson is able to make audiences laugh so much is that
he obviously has a great sense of humor about himself, too.
"Can you fly a helicopter?"
"Does the back of your head look like a huge penis?
The answer is yes."
Clearly, Johnson loves a running gag.
Across his filmography, you'll find a ton of callback jokes to Johnson's career in films,
as a wrestling superstar, or -- very often -- the transition between the two.
"He became a champion, and then a movie star."
"Arnold Schwarzenegger."
"God damn it, let me fini-- They ruined the story.
They ruined the story."
Time and time again, you'll find Johnson poking fun at his own career in a film.
In "Be Cool," one of his earlier film roles, he even played a character who was an aspiring
actor and prided himself on a very specific ability.
"Alright, come on, give me that eyebrow thing.
Oh, ho ho, look at that."
"I mean, that's something."
In "Red Notice," there are a few subtle jokes about Johnson's past, particularly one that
calls back that infamous fanny pack-and-turtleneck portrait that even Johnson has had some fun
with in recent years.
"You don't happen to have like a badge or something tucked away in the turtleneck, do you?"
Another thing hardcore fans might notice about Johnson's characters, including his turn as
Hartley in "Red Notice," is that they all seem to have the same taste when it comes
to adult beverages.
We see Hartley helping himself to some of Booth's liquor when he surprises the art thief
in his own hideaway, and his other characters tend to sip with the same style: they like
liquor, preferably neat.
"Shots!"
"What? No. One shot.
Just one!"
It makes sense, since Johnson is something of a connoisseur of fine beverages in real life.
In fact, in 2019, Johnson launched his own hand-crafted tequila company called Teremana.
As he recently confirmed in a Vanity Fair profile, Johnson is "a pickup truck guy" and
loves to cruise around whenever possible.
So perhaps it's no surprise that a lot of his screen characters end up behind the wheel
of a vehicle with some muscle.
But what is surprising is how often that includes an aerial vehicle.
Even more than the cars, jet skis, and tanks, Johnson's characters almost always end up
in the sky at some point in his movies.
Helicopters in particular constantly show up in Johnson's movies, such as "Rampage,"
or "Hobbs & Shaw" when his team uses a caravan of trucks to force a chopper down.
In "Jumanji," he has to repair a helicopter mid-flight while it dodges charging rhinos;
and in "San Andreas," he plays a rescue chopper pilot caught up in a city-wide disaster.
"Red Notice" is Johnson's latest film to feature a thrilling helicopter scene.
"Oh, you made it.
Thank God.
I was praying for you."
"Don't give me that shit.
You were gonna leave me?"
"You said 'save yourself.'"
"I said 'go,' but I didn't mean without me."
Basically, if you're looking for aerial mayhem, you're all but guaranteed to find some in
one of Johnson's movies.
Though much of the action in "Red Notice" takes place across parts of Europe and Asia,
the third act of the film moves the characters to the jungles of Argentina.
The sight of Johnson's character journeying through the jungle is probably pretty familiar
to his fans, of course.
There have been a number of films that also feature his characters getting up close and
personal with the wilderness.
Similarly, it's common to see Johnson's characters grappling with dangerous animals, for better
or for worse.
In "Red Notice," he has a hilariously brutal brush with a bull, and he's previously battled
with a number of beasts on-screen before.
From slaying mythical beasts in "Hercules" to tangling with a crocodile the size of a
city block in "Rampage," Johnson's characters are very likely to throw down with a terrifying creature.
"Beat it."
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