The Good

Ashley Scott. Over the top action.

The Bad

This movie seems to lose touch with reality over the course of the film.Danny Fisher (John Cena) is in for a long day. When his girlfriend (the stunning Ashley Scott) is kidnapped by Miles Jackson (Aidan Gillen), Fisher has to complete 12 games of cunning, terror and fear in order to bring her back. The fact that Jackson is one of the best terrorists in the business, and he has an axe to grind with Fisher, make the proceedings that much more suspenseful. Filled with lots of action, one liners, and everything else that we have come to expect from action movies of this ilk, at no point does 12 rounds disappoint. This may not be the most original movie, and the plot seems to get lulled into complete disbelief territory, overall John Cena and Co. acquit themselves well.

Yes, I just praised John Cena's acting.

Features

Commentary Track

Featured on this commentary track are Director Renny Harlin, Writer Daniel Kunka and John Cena. These three men have a good time here as they discuss the making of this movie, production stories, and what it was like to pull off the various stunts seen in this film. While at times it seems like these guys fall out of their tongue and cheek natures, all in all if you want the skinny on how the making of this movie went down then you should listen to this.

Two Alternate Endings

Crash Course

This is a stunts featurette that features John Cena. If you want to know how something is blown up, how explosives are used, and how to do it all safely then I would suggest watching this. While it is pretty straight forward and doesn't go into too much depth, all in all I found this segment fun to watch. We get to see Cena put in harms way yet he always manages to come out of it without a scratch.

Gag Reel

Video

Widescreen - Fox Home Entertainment didn't send any packaging so I can't go into technical detail about exactly what kind of widescreen it is. This movie looked like an action movie. It was big all over, the lighting was bright and dyspeptic, and I was actually surprised that Director Renny Harlin and his Director of Photography David Boyd didn't try a little more. I would have thought they might have employed more layered colors, or messed with the framing more but that didn't happen here. With 12 Rounds, what you see is what you get.

Audio

Again, without the actually packaging, I can't really speak to the exact nature of the audio. Things sounded solid. I watch this burned disc that Fox sent over on my 13" television set, and everything sounded right where I thought it should be. There weren't any moments where the audio got overly low, but I did notice a disparity in the sound between the talking and the action scenes. This was a minor problem but adjust ing the sound across this 108 minute film was a little bit annoying.

Package

As Fox Home Entertainment didn't give us any packaging, I really can't say anything about that.

Final Word

How long did this movie play in theaters?

With a production budget of $20 million, this movie, with DVD sales included (no other ancillary avenues), pulled in a little over $23 million. This isn't bad but I am sure that $3 million wasn't the tidy profit that Fox was hoping for when they put the greenlight on this film. That said, I think that this title will ultimately end up being popular with some people. Cena is a big wrestling star and the action in this movie is more than passable. I guess this film doesn't really do too many new things to make it stand out. Perhaps they need to get some really good writers at WWE Films so that a whole new franchise can be created?

12 Rounds is Home Entertainment in its purest form... even if defies logic.

12 Rounds was released March 19, 2009.