12 Rounds

12 Rounds

What do you get when you combine the directing skill of Renny Harlin with the acting talent of John Cena? You get a movie that is barely better than The Marine. The movie has too many negative factors against it to make it completely a fun popcorn movie.

Renny Harlin has become somewhat known as a bad movie legend around the film movie fan community. He’s directed some really shitty movies in his later career, such as Cutthroat Island, Driven and The Covenant. Renny doesn’t care about plot, acting, or editing. Most of his movies tank, yet he keeps getting work. Now, the WWE has hired him to make another starring vehicle for the WWE leading man John Cena. Like the Marine, the movie falls flat on its face.

John Cena once again proves that he will never be a good actor or even a fair one. The only thing Cena does convincingly is run fast. Not for a single second was I convinced that he was a police detective. Cena may be a good wrestler, but this action thriller just proves that he should stay in the ring and not in front of the camera. In addition, the plot doesn’t help Cena or anyone else either.

Harlin not only rips off his own movie Die Hard 2, but he even goes as far as ripping off Die Hard III. The main villain forces the main hero to go through elaborate puzzles in order to seek revenge on the hero. Then, Cena has to run around solving 12 Rounds to win back his girlfriend. There are some fun moments with the story, but everything is mapped out like a typical action movie. You can guess correctly where the plot will lead.

The poor directing and carbon copy scripting of Die Hard III will keep even the hardcore WWE fans away from it. It’s not a complete mess, but 12 Rounds does nothing

Grade: D+

______________________________________________________________The 4th of July fireworks went a little wonky.

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Cena: “If I used AT&T instead of Verizon, I wouldn’t have gotten into this mess.”