Review -- 12 Rounds
12 Rounds (2009)
Director: Renny Harlin
Starring: John Cena, Aidan Gillen, Ashley Scott
Canadian Rating: 14A
2.5 stars out of 4 (Respectable)
12 Rounds hits DVD retail/rental shelves this upcoming Tuesday.
By Albert Tam
12 Rounds is what I call back-to-basics action. Preposterous plot, lots of stuntwork, and testorene bleeding through the screen.
John Cena is Detective Danny Fisher who has a beautiful girlfriend, beautiful house, beautiful dog and he lives his life in normalcy when he gets challenged to 12 rounds of violent games by a maniacal criminal mastermind by the name of Miles Jackson, played by Aidan Gillen. The reason for this taunting is because years earlier, Fisher hunted Jackson down and Jackson’s girlfriend died in the process. It’s both revenge and insanity.
This movie was directed by Renny Harlin, whose most famous previous credit was Die Hard 2. He doesn’t seem interested in being original or creative with anything, instead he uses a premise that’s been done over and over and action sequences we’ve seen before. I saw scenes that reminded me of Point Break to Speed to everything in between.
Having said that, I still enjoyed 12 Rounds because it was mindlessly refreshing. Our screens are currently plagued with intelligent action films with brains and while they’re thrilling when done well, they tend to fall flat if done incorrectly - a process that happens far too often in Hollywood.
John Cena as the protagonist doesn’t really have the charm of Bruce Willis or Jason Statham and he’s simply an indestructible entity in 12 Rounds without a sense of humour. He can do the stunts, I just think cracking a joke or one-liner here and there might’ve elevated this movie to something more fun and less overtly frenetic.
The sole strength of 12 Rounds is its variation of action sequences. Of all the things that happen in action pictures, the one thing I cannot stand is redundancy in the form of back-to-back-to-back-to-back shootouts, car chases, or bare knuckle fighting.
Thankfully, Harlin opts to fill the screen with foot races, car chases, fire truck chases, shootouts, explosions, jumps, hand to hand combat in helicopters - you name one action sequence and this movie probably has it. It’s just that jam-packed and I won’t go as far as calling it cool, so much as a sea of testosterone that invites you in, drowns you in it, and resuscitates you by jarring your senses with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround sound.
Many people will disagree with my review and claim this movie to be unoriginal, desensitizing, and dragging but I firmly believe once in a while the people need action movies without a brain and be remembered of action movies of past. This movie is loud, yes, silly, yes, but it’s simple without rendering things simplistic and doesn’t offend us with incoherent scenes a-la-Transformers. I’ll take man versus super-intelligent terrorist over clunky robot versus clunky robot any day of the week.
With a bullet.
Director: Renny Harlin
Starring: John Cena, Aidan Gillen, Ashley Scott
Canadian Rating: 14A
2.5 stars out of 4 (Respectable)
12 Rounds hits DVD retail/rental shelves this upcoming Tuesday.
By Albert Tam
12 Rounds is what I call back-to-basics action. Preposterous plot, lots of stuntwork, and testorene bleeding through the screen.
John Cena is Detective Danny Fisher who has a beautiful girlfriend, beautiful house, beautiful dog and he lives his life in normalcy when he gets challenged to 12 rounds of violent games by a maniacal criminal mastermind by the name of Miles Jackson, played by Aidan Gillen. The reason for this taunting is because years earlier, Fisher hunted Jackson down and Jackson’s girlfriend died in the process. It’s both revenge and insanity.
This movie was directed by Renny Harlin, whose most famous previous credit was Die Hard 2. He doesn’t seem interested in being original or creative with anything, instead he uses a premise that’s been done over and over and action sequences we’ve seen before. I saw scenes that reminded me of Point Break to Speed to everything in between.
Having said that, I still enjoyed 12 Rounds because it was mindlessly refreshing. Our screens are currently plagued with intelligent action films with brains and while they’re thrilling when done well, they tend to fall flat if done incorrectly - a process that happens far too often in Hollywood.
John Cena as the protagonist doesn’t really have the charm of Bruce Willis or Jason Statham and he’s simply an indestructible entity in 12 Rounds without a sense of humour. He can do the stunts, I just think cracking a joke or one-liner here and there might’ve elevated this movie to something more fun and less overtly frenetic.
The sole strength of 12 Rounds is its variation of action sequences. Of all the things that happen in action pictures, the one thing I cannot stand is redundancy in the form of back-to-back-to-back-to-back shootouts, car chases, or bare knuckle fighting.
Thankfully, Harlin opts to fill the screen with foot races, car chases, fire truck chases, shootouts, explosions, jumps, hand to hand combat in helicopters - you name one action sequence and this movie probably has it. It’s just that jam-packed and I won’t go as far as calling it cool, so much as a sea of testosterone that invites you in, drowns you in it, and resuscitates you by jarring your senses with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround sound.
Many people will disagree with my review and claim this movie to be unoriginal, desensitizing, and dragging but I firmly believe once in a while the people need action movies without a brain and be remembered of action movies of past. This movie is loud, yes, silly, yes, but it’s simple without rendering things simplistic and doesn’t offend us with incoherent scenes a-la-Transformers. I’ll take man versus super-intelligent terrorist over clunky robot versus clunky robot any day of the week.
With a bullet.