It’s fashionable nowadays to criticize Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s acting choices, but there was a time not long ago where the wrestler-turned-actor’s natural charisma garnered somewhat different notices. While never celebrated as a prospective awards contender, he was still cheered on as “ franchise viagra ” on SNL , and if not celebrated by critics, then definitely respected for a boundless charisma and a nature so sunny that “even when he’s not wearing a smile, his facial muscles carry the ghost of one.”

Which is what makes seeing that smile turned mirthless in the latest trailer for Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine seem haunted and eerie.

“For me, a day without pain is like a day without sunshine,” Johnson’s Mark Kerr says in the new teaser. A day without pain, or sunshine

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