Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Andariel Halo Indeed this movie looks and feels low budget, no matter how they try to cover it in a thick veneer of gray and darkness, but that is not this movie's biggest flaw. The clinical tone of the film drew me in instantly, with the implication that the "first ever successfully cloned human", Elizabeth, may have some problems before it can be presented to the public. Unfortunately, this is about as far as the movie goes with its actual plot. The entire rest of the film consists of swarms of ugly Christian fanatics crying and whining about how the doctor is EVIL and the child is EVIL because GOD and JESUS. This takes up about 70% of the entire movie. Whether you agree with their idiotic views or not, the way it's strawmanned and put on display here is done with a clear sense of repugnance towards these people, allowing them to swallow up the full scope of the topic at hand while allowing for pretty much nothing else. Arguably it may be a realistic depiction of an ignorant, paranoid, anti-science bunch of people reacting with ugly violence to the unknown, but not only is this done to the detriment of the movie's pacing and overall storytelling, but it also doesn't advance beyond that. We see the anti-cloning Christian protestors, and they're anti-cloning and Christian, and that's literally it. They play no further role other than to be front and center for more than half the movie, while contributing nothing except being a nuisance to the doctor. Meanwhile, an even more interesting story is unfolding inside the doctor's house, with the subtle, never once explicitly stated implication that Elizabeth may not be the "first" cloned human. This branch of the film's story is completely smothered by the Ugly Americans Christian Protest footage that sucks the oxygen out of everything else in the film. Literally every aspect of this film suffers because so much time and attention is devoted to showing these Christian protestors and showing them in as ugly, vulgar, and violent a way as possible, with one bald idiot in particular breaking down sobbing incessantly while squealing "SHE DOESNT HAVE A SOUL! YOU DONT HAVE A SOUL!" in front of the doctor's house, before trying to attack a police officer. The main character of the doctor is one who comes across as being somewhat flat and affect-less, yet as the other plot gradually unfolds, he suddenly becomes highly intriguing as we see him show actual emotion and lose self control at one point towards the end. He gets very little else in terms of character development beyond that. The wife's story, with their kids, and the odd (nonsexual) homelife they have with two other people is one which doesn't need any further elaboration or exploration, but would at least warrant some additional time to see things through the wife's eyes more, rather than having her be just a token housewife who complains about the doctor working too much. There was a solid core of a good, suspenseful sci-fi thriller, with a near perfect tone of clinical detachment and a lack of explaining every little detail to the audience that could've put this in the same type of genre as "Primer", but more than half this film was devoted to being some sort of "Two Minute Hate" spiel against anti-science Christians that ends up swallowing up the whole movie.

wildblueyonder Not sure what the 'bad production' 'low budget' comments are about. I thought it was a well shot, well acted movie, an interesting premise, overall a solid 7...I always enjoy a movie that has some social commentary, and this one seems to give a few viewpoints and some believable depictions of human behavior.

Snaggletooth . I didn't expect much going into this, but what I got treated to was a pure disturbing joy. Impeccably acted, and downbeat from start to finish, the tension builds and builds to a horrific finish. I have to say, that on the subject matter therein this will be the definitive movie for years to come. Its astounding too that this is a debut feature by this director, being an extremely mature piece of filmmaking. What you get here is a Cronenbergian nightmare, which deals with an issue we will all find ourselves confronted with at some point in the distant future. Science and religion collide, but the very end of the movie leaves us with a piece of dialogue concerning just how much we might need to put our personal morals aside for the future of our species. This is easily one of the best horror movies I've seen this year, but if you're a horror fan who thinks that the genre must always be silly slashers and guts and gore then maybe you should go back to your Jason and Michael DVDs. This movie will play well to all lovers of great cinema however.

Lowbacca1977 Closer to God is a modern revamp of Frankenstein, and it somewhat straddles the genres of science-fiction and horror, or at least tries to. While there's a large attempt of things that seem scientific, I really feel like that area was so underdeveloped that I just didn't find that at all convincing, even for suspending disbelief for the purposes of a film. It's what comes of a film trying to make some pretty broad claims about science without really exploring or addressing them. The horror film aspect of it has its moments, and while I think it did a very good job of building up tension, it really seemed to fall apart when it came time to cash in on that by being a bit blunt about it, after doing a fairly good job of building up the unease and mystery.There certainly are some other interesting questions that are at least mentioned about what represents humanity and how cloning factors in, and it acknowledges a lot of issues with the ethics, philosophy, and spirituality of cloning, but it doesn't really explore or discuss those issues much. It opens the door to them, and I do give it some credit for not pushing a particular answer to those questions, but I feel like more could have been fleshed out with them.An overall slow pacing, I think it could've been made up for with stronger points, both conceptually and thematically, instead it fizzles out a bit at the end.