Good action scenes, bad acting even tho John Cena is better in this then he is in the marine.

B-

I saw about 20 minutes of this today, it was more than enough to entice me to see the rest. Not because it looks good or I'll enjoy it, but because this seems to truly have the makings of a "worst of 2009" film, and I would hate to miss that.

Bad news: It's a ripoff top to bottom of Die Hard with a Vengeance. Lets see, instead of a dead Hans Gruber pissing off his brother enough to enact revenge on Bruce Willis, we have a dead girlfriend pissing off a bad guy enough to enact revenge on John Cena. Like Die Hard 3 said bad guy sets up a series of elaborate games to jerk Cena and the FBI guys around for a little bit through a series of phone calls. Hey, trickery, might the bad guy be throwing a bit of misdirection their way in order to steal money from a mint? You betcha, though he doesn't have quite as lofty goals as Gruber did. I think Gruber wanted something near $100 billion dollars. The bad guy here only wants $100 million in wet dollar bills. Anyways, is there a runaway subway car at any point? Not quite, but you get a runaway trolley car. And does the bad guy somehow meet his demise in a helicopter? I think you can figure that one out for yourself.

Good news: I didn't give a shit. I was entertained the entire time I watched this. If you give John Cena the right script (you know, something more original) he might become the next big action star. He's got the charisma. Sure the acting chops could use polishing up, but he's not bad by any stretch of the imagination especially compared to the likes of Van Damme and Seagal. Yeah I know that's faint praise, but if those guys can become stars Cena can too. He just needs to dump WWE as soon as possible if he wants to be in a film that makes more than $10 million worldwide.

***

Yes, I did enjoy it a bit.

C-

12 Rounds is actually a decent action film from start to finish. Though the routine has been tried over and over again and the acting isn't that good, the film keeps with it a good adrenaline rush and the film succeeds in that aspect. Not a shabby way to spend close to 2 hours. **

B-


Like Jmart has said, it is a pure Die Hard with a Vengeance rip-off from start to finish, even including the master scheme that along with revenge also includes stealing A LOT of money.

But rip-off or not, it is still an entertaining actioner. Now I don't see John Cena having much charisma. He's pretty wooden. But as a stock action hero he does his job rather well. He's not another The Rock who, on the other hand, is actually quite charismatic and charming. But he does roles that maybe The Rock should have done more to be taken seriously as an action star now and not as a star of films like Tooth Fairy.

Renny Harlin has proven in the past that he knows how to stage good action scenes with films like Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight (so underrated!) and Deep Blue Sea. 12 Rounds is another. It never pretends to be anything more than it is - a silly action flick with a lot of explosions and disregard for collateral damage. But for what it is, it is a decent outing of a genre that seems rather dormant nowadays - a straight-up no-bullshit old school action flick. For that it is enjoyable - and mostly forgettable.