Michael Pena

Film Review: Tom & Jerry is a kitty litter-filled excuse of a film that dishonours the cartoon’s legacy

Given the fact that Tom & Jerry screenwriter Kevin Costello has a duo of self-aware, critically acclaimed projects to his name – the dramedy Brigsby Bear and Jean Claude Van Damme’s underrated television series Jean Claude Van Johnson – one might think he’d be able to create something innovative off the basis of 7-minute cartoon…

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Film Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp (USA, 2018) is the perfect antidote from the doom and gloom of Avengers: Infinity War

The superhero film boom continues! After the gloom-and-doom of Avengers: Infinity War, we now have the sequel to the miniature superhero franchise, Ant-Man and the Wasp. Free from the shackles of predetermined disappointment after the absence of original director Edgar Wright from the first film, returning director Peyton Reed and lead actor/co-writer Paul Rudd truly…

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Film Review: A Wrinkle in Time (USA, 2018) aims valiantly for the stars, but falls flat on its face

Fantasy films aimed towards children can be a very tricky proposition. Usually, films of this type aim to entertain the entire family but for ones that specifically aim for children, how does one critique a film like this? Judge the film for what it is? Or judge the film through the eyes of a child?…

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Film Review: 12 Strong (USA, 2018) is as dynamic as it is earnest

Depending how you look at it, 12 Strong‘s insistence on bypassing the usual heavy-handed political messages and overt emotional punches that pertain to war genre films will either be a welcome or rejected additive.  It’s a film that’s pretty standard (at least in comparison to genre greats like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down),…

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Film Review: CHiPs (MA15+) (USA, 2017) seldom earns its comedy tag

After proving himself a competent director and screenwriter with the rather modest (at least in comparison) action/comedy Hit & Run in 2012, Dax Shepard unfortunately fails to pair the aforementioned genres together again with CHiPs, an extremely loose adaptation of the popular 1977 television series, which attempts to blend sordid humour with high-grade action and…

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Will Smith confronts death, time, and love in new Collateral Beauty trailer

Collateral Beauty stars Will Smith as a brilliant and talented New York ad man who is mourning the death of his young daughter. As some sort of coping mechanism, Smiths character writes and posts letters to Death, Time, and Love, who he believes play an important part in our lives. He never expects to receive…

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