JJMcJames Reviews

Emulation (2010)

No Budget Home Movie Flops as Wannabee Motion Picture

[1/10 · 28 July 2013]

A lot of the other reviewers (as of July 2013) are lying through their teeth about this being a quality, exciting, well acted or well directed film. Truth is that this film is an example of novice film making gone awry. Although the general idea for the plot is creative, the film's use of non-actors in major character roles, its novice level direction, along with its very poor editing make this film as one that is almost entirely impossible to get through without fast forwarding and skipping scenes altogether. But, the question I ask myself is whether it's the worst movie I've ever seen??? My honest answer is a solid, unequivocal Yes.

Nevertheless, I do congratulate the kid who tried to pull this off simply for his courage to try to do so. However, I after shooting first scene or two I have to fault him for his time wasting foolishness for thinking that this film was going to turn out being anything but a complete and total failure.

Any producer/director worth his salt would know when to fold up the production and patiently wait until the film could resume with competent actors and production staff. I'd assume that the kid who made this film was well aware shortly after filming began that it was going to be a failure but was too intimidated by the thought of having to tell his friends and family that he needed to replace them. It's a hard thing to tell a friend, who has put a lot of time and effort into helping you fulfill a dream, that their efforts diminish the value of the film's quality, but that's the price of the leadership role you have assumed in trying to make this movie.

If I were the producer/director of this film and had any aspirations of making it in the film industry, the first thing I would do is to ensure that every copy is destroyed and pulled from the internet so that no one in the film business could ever see it in the future and form a derogatory opinion of me when considering me for film work. It's simply a shame that it's been registered on IMDb because it's now more difficult to hide it. This is not a film making effort to be proud of, but is instead one to take a hard look at evaluate the reasoning and causality behind its criticisms and simply learn from it. I'd also ask my friends and family who posted those overtly enthusiastic reviews to go back and correct them with what they really think of the film.

Ghost Recon: Alpha (2012)

Great film, wish they'd make it into TV series

[10/10 · 9 December 2012]

I really enjoyed this. I don't play video games, even those first person shooters as I believe they are called. I'd rather spend my time at my gun club shooting my wide collection of 50+ rifles and handguns. But enough of my digression. Though I have no plans to ever waste my time playing video games and will leave that to our sedentary youth, I would absolutely love to see this short film come to the small screen as a series or to the big screen as a sequel-ized series of films. It is definitely a commercially feasible production with great acting, fantastic action, and exception special effects. So, if any of the producers are reading this, please take a hint from this over 45 reviewer...make it into a series and you'll have big ratings, plus you'll ongoing advertising for your video game.

The Soldier (2007)

The Soldier comes up MIA for originality and realism

[3/10 · 6 March 2009]

Pure disappointment. I don't know about you, but men just don't scream like the characters in the Soldier. In fact men just don't scream at all. For us men, our only point of reference for screaming is from what we've seen teenage chicks do in the Friday the 13th movies and others of that genre. Perhaps that is why the screaming characters in this short film sound like a couple of 13 year old school girls. But, as I mentioned previously, what would anyone expect given that this is typical male's point of reference for screaming and why, therefore, the screaming done by men in this film is just so very unrealistic.

As for special effects, the blood was way over done. Instead of the 14 gallons or so that was apparently used, they could have easily made do with less than a couple of pints to display this effect.

As for the hatchet...who didn't see that one coming???? The old bury the hatchet in the forehead of the zombie routine. Then there's the hatchet itself...definitely not a 1940's or earlier Kraut designed hatchet. But is definitely a modern American design as are the rubber boots with the Goodyear tread worn by the dead Kraut. Here in Texas we call em mud boots. I wear a pair out to the barn every day to feed my horses so I don't have to worry what I step in coming or going. However, those kind of boots on the German solider made me think he couldn't afford jack boots and so he bought the closest thing he could find to them at the nearest Walmart. While I'm on props and such, the abandoned research facility, which would have been occupied until just prior to the D-Day invasion. However, the set was designed to show years of deterioration. As a former military installation that had been recently abandoned, this facility would have been in immaculate condition...meaning no peeling paint or other deterioration of the interior of the building and its contents. By the way, the absence of dialog,except for the screaming, was distracting.

My 3 rating is for the good job they did on the British soldier's great uniform. However, I want to be clear that there are certainly some very fine elements in this film, but the problem is that as a whole the film is just not A or B quality. As this director matures, he'll most likely turn out some very fine movies. But to get to that point, he'll have to leave the adolescent plot elements to juvenile film makers.