Seems not even screaming droves of Wrestling fans wanted to see John Cena’s 12 Rounds this weekend. Perhaps they were all off watching Monsters vs Aliens with their mums. This left 12 Rounds to scavenge $5.3m landing in 7th on its opening weekend.
Irish actor Gillen, who suggests a curious mix of Richard Gere and Gary Oldman, brings a devious sparkle to smirking sociopath Miles, who seems on the verge of breaking into a wee jig every time he sets Danny another apparently impossible task.
If Cena were half as charismatic, Danny and Miles’ turbo-charged cat-and-mouse game would be a real blast. But Cena is no Jason Statham. His stolid seriousness sucks the life right out of any scene in which he’s required to speak.
The movie itself didn’t have much of a draw to me as most described the plot as a ripoff of another Cena film, but it turns out it was only vaguely paralleled. My issue was the lack of interest in seeing a movie staring a professional wrestler pretending to be an actor.
I don’t mind professional wrestlers getting parts in movies where they may be asked to play supporting roles, or just in a scene that requires a physically imposing person. Hands down the best reasons to get a tv wrestler personality to do it. But they rarely turn out to give good performances in lead roles. Dwayne Johnson being likely the only exception to that rule, but he quit wrestling and worked his way up the food chain.
With an estimated production budget of a modest $20million this isn’t an utter failure by any means, but it sure doesn’t shine a good light on Cena.
Gone are the days when tagging a wrestlers name on a movie would instantly attract his loyal fans to the seats.
