I'm Not Jesus Mommy

I saw the film at a screening where the director was in attendance and I understand the film has not been released yet, I'm very curious how it will resonate with audiences, but here's my take on it; First off, if you're offended by mad scientists destroying human fetuses, abuse of Mexican immigrants or the human cloning process in general, you will be fired up by this film.I'll be surprised if this film doesn't end up getting some very negative attention from special-interest groups. That being said, the film didn't have even one bit of profanity, nudity or on-camera violence.

Vaughn Juares, the film's director, was in attendance at a small screening I attended and in a Q&A after the film Juares stated that "Man Made" was based on the Biblical Book of Revelations. Seeing the film without that reference I didn't pick up on that right away, but I'm also not a Bible-nut.

The film was done with a "Hitchcock-like" approach with off-camera violence and the use of graphic sounds to get the point across. I'm not sure if that's because of Juares' creative vision or if budget constraints played a greater role in defining his approach (Juares mentioned that the film had a very tight budget which was NOT obvious when watching the film - besides no stars in the movie, it looked like a real Hollywood production).

"Man Made" is very engaging, it pushes a lot of buttons and it has the potential to start a really heated public discussion.

I recommend "Man Made" to anyone who's worried about where the world might be headed.

Several male reviewers were quite upset about the lead actress being over-weight and unattractive. These knuckle-dragging sexists would have preferred Lindsey Lohan, no doubt. I don't recall any female comments being concerned with how skinny Charles Hubbell was – kudos to them all. Hubbell though, was noted frequently as an unknown actor of little skill, despite a long list of credits on IMDb itself. He is a fine actor in this movie and elsewhere. Then we have the "scientists" out there upset over the lack of scientific logic in a fantasy/horror movie about the Apocalypse.

Now I'll admit I was having some troubles with this movie at the beginning. I almost gave up on it. The major research facility looked like a walk-in-clinic in a strip mall. But that "Seven Years Later" CONELRAD deal woke me up and piqued my interest, along with some later twists and surprises. (And Hubbell's amazing descent into evangelical madness.) I think I know who that was at the very end: the Slender Man? Christopher Walken? The Tall Man from Phantasm? Oral Roberts? You decide; that's what makes vague endings fun and a source of discussion. The movie was weird, interesting, and different. I liked it.

Contrary to its so-bad-it's-good reputation, this thematically-bizarre production plays out with such an earnest tone that the cynical viewer's laughter might very well die on the lips. The first half-hour, in fact, actually shows signs of promise, and there's little evidence of any problems caused by the film's reportedly slim budget. The story-line then jumps ahead seven years, however, and trouble arrives. America, according to the movie, is now in the grip of some sort of new Ice Age, and the cast spends the rest of its time bundled up like extras from Robert Altman's "Quintet," confined to dimly-lit rooms, their breath coming out in visible vapor. The cloning-divinity premise of the movie is so strong -- implausible but strong -- that this sudden swerve into an Ice Age apocalypse seems not only unnecessary but distracting. It's as if the writers' mistakenly thought their premise couldn't carry an entire movie so they decided to throw in something else. The movie weakens at this point and never recovers despite an ending that, to put it mildly, goes beyond the curious. One final note: co-writer, co-star Joe Schneider looks mighty good with his shirt off.

This was by any measure a bad film. I cannot defend the poor writing, the poor acting and horrible casting, they are indefensible. This was basically a family project financed, produced, directed, written and acted by a husband and wife team...and it shows. The other reviews are so unkind that they deserve mention. The lead actress is a plain woman who is as they say politely "full figured" and is the star because she is the Exectutive Producer and Produce, therefore she paid for the movies and ergo she is the star. To refer to her as fat and ugly is cruel and unkind. I do think that she could have been prepped better, but I would also note that some TV stars are less attractive and larger that she is, but are fawned over by the press. Also the religious sub theme of this film is attacked in almost every review, had the theme been the coming of Satan it would have been received more favorably. Let's just say this is a BAD Sci Fi film and leave it at that.

I'm Not Jesus Mommy is poorly written. I can not leave a spoiler because the conclusion is so vague and the story line so poorly developed that the viewer can not be sure what happened. I was struck by several things about the film from the start that made the story line impossible. First, it is no secret that the plot hinges on a child cloned from the blood stains on the Shroud of Turin. So, anything I tell you about that aspect tells you no more than you already know. The film begins with the secretive, questionable fertility clinic performing human cloning. In a scene where the process is being explained to new scientists recruited for the clinic, the head doctor says that the clones are made from red blood cells. Fact: red blood cells have no DNA or nucleus unlike other cells in the body. Clones are normally made from cells lining the stomach. Strike one. During this presentation, the head doctor shows on a screen a power-point presentation of human DNA used for cloning. In DNA, it is a double helix formed of two base pairs of nucleic acids. The graphics on the film show not base pairs or even two single strands of bases: it shows two strands of base triplets. Fact: nowhere in any organism's DNA are nucleotides in triplets or groups of six; all organism's DNA is in base pairs. Strike two. While the head doctor is manipulating tissue to get more clones, he is shown slicing off large chunks of tissue (from what is probably raw meat from the grocery), which is not the way clone DNA is obtained. Stike three. The plausibility of the film's plot basis is lost in the first few scenes. In some places I found humor. While the head doctor is preparing his tissue samples for cloning, he is listening to Ave Maria, a classical piece of Roman Catholic liturgy praising Mary as the mother of Jesus. Chance or simply too obvious a choice by the film makers?

After this disappointing start that most with a high school knowledge of genetics and human anatomy would know is flawed, we jump several years to an apocalyptic world with no explanation. More time is spent on meaningless following of fundamentalist Christian beliefs about the second coming than in explaining what is happening.

The film also amuses with obvious flaws in costuming that we are not supposed to notice. In order to make the protagonist doctor look more academic, she wears glasses. But she wears them in scenes where accurate vision is not needed and fails to wear them when she would need them most. After she has been developed as a character, the glasses disappear completely. If this woman needs glasses, why is she not wearing them at the appropriate times and wearing them at the inappropriate times?

The film might interest some fundamentalist Christians as it compares well with films on the anti-Christ and the Rapture. But for an educated audience, when it finally ends, we are left without knowing how it has ended. Few films at the end leave me in doubt as to what the climax was or what it meant.

So, file this one away with other B movies based on Revelations. Watch it with an intelligent person and you will both be discussing for some time what the ending was. That is why a spoiler is almost impossible. You would have to be able to give away the ending to provide a spoiler.