Ben Stein’s EXPELLED introduces to a mass audience the unfairness in representation suppression of Intelligent Design among academia and the media, making the “Darwinian Establishment” somewhat of a villain of the film. The actual focus of the film, however, is the freedom to think, to question, to learn. I think it’s a good introduction to the topic and discussion starter.
There is humorous use of “manipulative” footage throughout the film which will anger a lotta folks. But from a ‘film criticism’ perspective, it seems as though the filmmakers exaggerated the use of the stock footage almost as a parody to Michael Moore’s documentaries. If you pay attention enough, the footage is only visually and humorously emphasizing the point already stated before it.
I liked it though. And because I know a bit about the subject I liked the presentation. It was intellectual and humorous at times and a decent introduction. Stein gets a lot of big names in there too — like Guillermo Gonzalez, William Dembski, and Richard Dawkins among others. He even got Richard Dawkins (professed atheist and author of numerous books including “The God Delusion”) to state that there could be intelligence involved in human origins. In a way, he almost did something similar to what Michael Moore did with Charlton Heston in “Bowling for Columbine”. It’s not as drastic and incriminating perhaps, but still a nice point toward the end of the film.
I’ve read from science and film communities online that they’re calling the movie another “Manufactroversy” like other contemporary agenda-based documentaries — eh. It was 9th in the box office this weekend, and has pretty good numbers for a ‘political documentary’. Other than the publicity campaign, I think a bigger success is dependent on word-of-mouth.
This isn’t a movie review, just my thoughts :) To read a pretty good, intelligent review of the film, see William Mayer’s Expelled review.
I recommend the movie, regardless of your political/scientific knowledge or lack thereof.
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