12 Rounds Reviews

as a fast-food action director, Renny Harlin still delivers a fun movie

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Heavy on stunts but light on plausibility, humor, surprise, visual ingenuity or psychological depth.

Full Review

Awfully forgettable, but Harlin makes things go boom again, with ruthless efficiency that puts the flick just over the hump of the straight-to-cable Jeff Speakman school. [Blu-ray]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

With all the nuance of a fist to the groin, ... (it's) the kind of forgettable film that isn't impossible to enjoy but that only a Cena fan could truly love.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

A very satisfying and well made action thriller that could only be improved if Arnold Schwarzenegger was the star.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

With its wonderful post-Katrina NOLA setting and the standard stunt spectacle as only Harlin can deliver, 12 Rounds is actually quite good. It's no masterpiece, but then again, few post-millennial adrenaline rushes have been.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

...a decent action movie that could've been a great one...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Loud, idiotic nonsense.

Full Review

Apart from the palpably improbable storyline, Harlan shows a massive disregard for characterisation, and so much bang-bang editing that you scarcely know where you are.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Cena has the sort of likeable air that suggests he could just make it as an action movie type. However, it won't be thanks to this movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

This is a welcome throwback for audiences raised on '90s action flicks - what they used to call "a pulse-pounding roller-coaster thrill-ride of a movie".

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

There's a decent little action movie somewhere inside '12 Rounds': a bit more complexity of character, a few more jokes and a hero who doesn't look like a two-by-four with a buzz cut might have gone a long way.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/6

While 12 Rounds is well above average for an action movie, it's important not to get too carried away. This is, after all, a picture in which leading lady Ashley Scott is less appealing than her pet pug.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

A lunk-headed, brawling action movie with more muscle than brains and the kind of editing that feels like being repeatedly shot in the eyes with a staple gun.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

One long blur of car stunts and digital clocks counting down to detonation - passable for lazy television viewing, but not worth the price of a ticket.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

It remains to be seen whether this crude, dumbly entertaining outing will encourage the director to tackle more of the Greek myths.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

12 Rounds's familiarity undercuts any kind of suspense it hopes to build, and for an action-packed romp it's incredibly dull.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

Those in the mood for something kinda dumb but lotsa fun look no further.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

The kind of passable in-flight entertainment you could watch half-asleep.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Fun, witless and pretension-free, 12 Rounds is Die Hard meets Saw meets WWE: pure chest-thumping testosterone cinema, edited like a jackhammer and delivered at thrash-punk velocity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5