"Expelled" is the right’s inconvenient truth

In his new film, Expelled, Ben Stein plays a Michael Moorish Socratic gadfly advocating “academic freedom”—though somehow you get the impression he’s probably not much of a Ward Churchill supporter.

   What begins as a provocative film replete with highly-credentialed scientists and a credible argument that intelligent design ought to be examined in academic circles quickly devolves into an endorsement of I.D. itself. It does this by vilifying evolution as “displacing religion” and being complicit in eugenics experiments at Dachau.
   The evocation of Nazism is desperate and unnecessary; the film’s own Darwinists do an adequate job of undermining their credibility when Stein gets them to admit that they have no idea of how life started. When pressed, their best guess is that the planet was “seeded by aliens” or life “hitchhiked on the backs of crystals.” Making I.D.’s detractors look kookier than even the most extreme religious fanatics is a page out of Moore’s book and a garish close-up of Stein’s face emotes amusement as he voices-over “is this science or science fiction?”
   But that smattering of comic relief and a clever soundtrack (Norman Greenbaum’s iconic “Spirit in the Sky”) are not enough. He may be more likable, but Stein doesn’t engender the emotion that Michael Moore can in Bowling for Columbine, and if Expelled is just a rallying point for the right, can it actually change anyone’s mind?
   Anyone?
   Anyone?

1 honk
MPAA Rating: PG