12 ROUNDS

ENGLISH - (18SG) - 26 March 2009 - Action
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Running time: about 108 mins.
Director: Renny Harlin
Producers: Becki Cross Trujillo, Mark Gordon, Renny Harlin, Mike Lake, Josh McLaughlin, Vince McMahon
Writers: Daniel Kunka
Casts: John Cena, Ashley Scott, Steve Harris, Gonzalo Menendez, Adrian Gillen, Brian J White
Plot: When New Orleans Police Detective Danny Fisher stops a brilliant thief from getting away with a multi-million-dollar heist, the thief's girlfriend is accidentally killed. After escaping from prison, the criminal mastermind enacts his revenge, taunting the cop with a series of near-impossible puzzles and tasks - 12 rounds - that Baxter must somehow complete to save the life of his own fiancee.

THE VERDICT:

Green Tea says:

WARNING SPOILER! This is not the first time WWE stars get involved in some movies. So far until today, only Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson made it big, in fact he is big and more outstanding than the others. With John Cena, another famous wrestler joining the feat, no much I can say about it.

The movie is all about Det. Danny Fisher (played by Cena himself) been dragged into a game of 12 rounds by Miles Jackson, a smart terrorist (Steve Harris) that have plans to use him and his fiancee to deploy an orchestra of plan to seize million of dollars from a facility. Besides using it as a ploy, Miles intended to redeem a revenge over Fisher after Fisher indirectly caused the death of his girlfriend a year back. Can Fisher outdo all 12 rounds in order to save his fiancee and to stop Miles' evil plan?



This movie is an action-packed film with a lot of outstanding action sequences that you will awed off. Car crashes, chases from one street to another, elevator ploy and so much more, starting from the beginning till the end, the audience will be continue to sit still and enjoy them all. This movie started with an intelligence play that designate the plot afterward. It is therefore, very straight forward story and thus there is nothing much to drag about. However, been only actions are not enough as none of them can be suited as a very memorable one.

The plot itself is interesting, using the action packed with an elements of 12 rounds of interesting "games" created by a very cautious, cunning, opportunist and destructive terrorist. Is he The Joker? However, been to straight forward, the movie totally ignored any characterization building and any romantic budding in the story. This is absolutely critical but the story stay to focus on what it is to be - actions.

Acting wise, I suggested that John Cena at the moment to stick back to his wrestling career. He may need to have some acting class before starting a career like Mr Dwayne Johnson. It is bad for me to say this, his performance in the movie is a bit woody and non-stellar. In fact, his girlfriend played by Ashley Scott did better than him. The best is, Steve Harris as the villain stole all the limelight and I think the audience will look at him more than Cena. Steve Harris is a good actor and he did brilliantly in this movie.

Cinematography works were good excpet the camera-styles. The camera is a bit shaky and it did dizzed me off a bit. Otherwise it is still good!! If you are a John Cena's fan, this movie is just for you. I think in general, this movie did mediocrely well and the movie will just be another heavily-action movie to pass on.

THE RATINGS.....
CAST - 3.0 stars
STORY - 3.5 stars
CINEMATOGRAPHY - 3.0 stars
EFFECTS - 3.0 stars
an overall>> 3.0 stars
GreenTea-O-Meter: 12.8