Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Year: 2008

Grade: D-

Country: USA

Director: Frankowski

Review

everything that people claim a michael moore film is, and then some. it’s truly bad propaganda without any intellectual honesty or real perspective. they weave in stock footage and film footage as a way of commentary on the topic at hand, thus making a judgment without having ben stein actually say anything. the highlight of the film was linking darwinism and nazism. what the nazis did, they said, wouldn’t have been possible without the ideas of darwin. of course this is wrong for a number of reasons (eugenics is flawed in part because evolution is about the positive effects of genetic mutation, which the nazis clearly rebuked), but stein doesn’t care to think too much about this (or anything). the film is all about making loose associations and weak critiques of evolution and academia in an effort to make “intelligent design” a more tractable concept. it’s not that i’m interested in hearing the ideas argued on their own merits, but this film doesn’t even touch the science in any real way. stein clearly fancies himself a cross between the wit and political hell raising talents of michael moore and the science and likability of the new al gore; but he’s not even close to either of them. when someone wants to make a documentary that honestly looks at the shortcomings of evolution and the theories of intelligent design then i’ll watch it. this film isn’t that at all.

Watched in theater