In 12 Rounds, Cena isn't the stiff he was in The Marine, in which he played a guy who gets after some villains who snatch his girlfriend. In 12 Rounds, Cena is positively Matt Damonish in playing a cop who battles an Irish terrorist who snatches his girlfriend. He's Matt Damon with muscles, or at least a guy who looks like Matt Damon (literally) on steroids, struggling to stop a speeding streetcar, to defuse a bomb, exit a falling elevator or get out of speeding cars, fire trucks or helicopters. He still can't emote worth a lick or even manage a cocked eyebrow, which wrestler Dwayne Johnson rode to film fame. But it doesn't matter as much this time.
The World Wrestling Entertainment star plays Danny Fisher, a conscientious New Orleans cop who becomes involved in the violent capture of international terrorist Miles Jackson (Aidan Gillen), during which time the criminal's girlfriend is accidentally killed. One year later, Jackson escapes from prison ready to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge on Fisher in the form of a dozen death-defying, ticking-clock tests the police detective must unravel and pass if he wants his fiancée (Ashley Scott) to stay alive.
Fisher somehow matches wits with the wickedly brilliant Jackson, wreaking massive havoc across New Orleans (hasn't it been through enough?) as he super-heroically wrestles with seemingly every kind of public transport to fulfill Jackson's checklist of near-impossible missions. Needless to say, mere mortals probably wouldn't survive past round 12.
Daniel Kunka's gimmicky, wildly far-fetched script may have no more between its ears than absolutely necessary, but director Renny Harlin keeps the wall-to-wall action hurtling along at such breakneck speed, that it's not hard to get swept up in the crash-and-explode craziness of it all.
0 comments:
Post a Comment