The current trend of “going green” in Hollywood is in full effect as “12 Rounds” recycles crap from 1988.

There is hardly anything in this excruciatingly unbearable low-budget action flick that is even the least bit redeeming. Really, it’s “Free Movies” OnDemand bad. If a drinking game were invented and every time this WWE-produced film used other action movies’ ideas for motivation, the viewer would be hammered before Act II.

Danny Fisher (WWE wrestler John Cena) is your average clean-cut, straight-laced cop who has obviously replaced the jelly donuts with a protein shake. Seriously, this guy is swoll. A year ago, the girlfriend of the evil mastermind Miles (Aidan Gillen) was inadvertently killed, and now Miles is out of prison and ready to seek vengeance. So, he takes Fisher’s wife (Ashley Scott) and sets up a highly elaborate game across New Orleans. If Fisher survives 12 rounds of daunting challenges, his wife will be let free.

Watching this movie is as strenuous as reading “War and Peace,” except afterward you don’t feel a sense of accomplishment or self-pride; you feel like regurgitating your popcorn (if you haven’t already). B-movie legend Renny Harlin (“Cliffhanger,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight”) directs haphazardly to the point where it’s been 30 long minutes (which feel like hours) into the movie and there hasn’t even been a “Round 1” yet.

Cena, the grappler that he is, offers nothing more than a few cool stunt scenes. He looks, talks and acts like the dirt-poor man’s Mark Wahlberg and delivers his lines with so much feigned emotion, it’s like he’s cutting a wrestling promo. This is another miss in Cena’s attempt to crossover into the mainstream after the equally mindless action romp, “The Marine.”

On a paltry budget of $22 million, the gaps that could not be closed due to a small budget are obvious. The lead villain looks as if he were pulled from a dinner theater in Podunk, Iowa and studied Jeremy Irons’ performance in “Die Hard: With A Vengeance” to pick up dastardly mannerisms.

This guy is so unlikable not because he was a convincing villain but because he looked like Booger from “Revenge of the Nerds” and was about as conniving as Rick Moranis.

This movie, much like all of WWE’s other endeavors, is void of any real emotion or purpose. “12 Rounds” will give you a T.K.O. by the time the opening credits have rolled. Don’t waste your time.

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