Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)

User Rating:

3.7/10   

Director:

Nathan Frankowski

Writers (WGA):

Kevin Miller (written by) and
Ben Stein (written by)

Release Date:

18 April 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Comedy | Fantasy

Tagline:

Big science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom...What they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel!

Plot:

Ben Stein examines the issue of academic freedom and decides that there is none when it comes to the debate over intelligent design.

Plot Keywords:

Darwinism | Intelligent Design | Academic Freedom | Freedom | Eugenics

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Ben Stein	...	Himself - Host
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lili Asvar	...	Student
Peter Atkins	...	Himself
Hector Avalos	...	Himself
Doug Axe	...	Himself
Adam Behr	...	Animation Voices (voice)
David Berlinski	...	Himself
Walter Bradley	...	Himself
Bruce Chapman	...	Himself
Antonio Christina	...	Student
Anderson Cooper	...	Himself (archive footage)
Caroline Crocker	...	Herself
Richard Dawkins	...	Himself
William Dembski	...	Himself (as William Albert Dembski)
Daniel C. Dennett	...	Himself (as Daniel Dennett)
Michael Egnor	...	Himself
Steve Fuller	...	Himself
Uta George	...	Herself
Marciej Giertych	...	Himself
Guillermo Gonzalez	...	Himself
John Hauptman	...	Himself
Adolf Hitler	...	Himself (archive footage)
Benjamin Kelley	...	Himself (as Ben Kelley)
John Lennox	...	Himself
Robert J. Marks II	...	Himself
Alister McGrath	...	Himself
Stephen C. Meyer	...	Himself
Paul Zachary Myers	...	Himself (as P. Z. Myers)
Paul Nelson	...	Himself
John Polkinghorne	...	Himself
William Provine	...	Himself (as Will Provine)
Laura Ruloff	...	(voice)
Walt Ruloff	...	(voice)
Michael Ruse	...	Himself
Margaret Sanger	...	Herself (archive footage)
Gerald Schroeder	...	Himself
Jeffrey Schwartz	...	Himself
Eugenie C. Scott	...	Herself (as Eugenie Scott)
Michael Shermer	...	Himself
Mark Souder	...	Himself
Richard Sternberg	...	Himself
Deano Sutter	...	Himself - Introductory Speaker
Witold 'Vic' Walczak	...	Himself (archive footage)
Daniel Walsch	...	Himself
Richard Weikart	...	Himself
Jonathan Wells	...	Himself
Pamela Winnick	...	Herself
Larry Witham	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Crossroads (USA) (fake working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG for thematic material, some disturbing images and brief smoking.

Runtime:

USA:90 min | Germany:97 min (European Film Market)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor) | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:PG | Singapore:NC-16 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA

Company:

Premise Media Corporation

Trivia:

The movie is being promoted by Motive Marketing, who have created several novel initiatives to raise interest in the movie. The "Expelled Challenge" will provide schools with $5 to $10 for each "Expelled" ticket stub from the first two weeks of the film's release, up to a maximum of $10,000. To "maximize your school's earning potential" they suggest a "school-wide mandatory field trip". "Adopt-A-Theatre" will provide $1000 to the five largest group ticket bookings. Anyone who took a group of 25 or more to see the movie could send in for a free Ben Stein "bobblehead" doll.

Quotes:

Ben Stein: But will eradicating religion really lead to a modern utopia? Let me try to imagine that and let's let history be our guide.

Movie Connections:

Features "Paula Zahn Now" (2003)

Soundtrack:

Utopia

Ben Stien Vs. Reality

"Religulous" was a documentary about the ridiculous aspects of religion. Within the first five minutes we learn that Maher is an atheist, a comedian, and a bit of a prick. In Stein and Frankowski's "Expelled", we begin with black and white montage of The Berlin Wall, armed soldiers and huddled masses, this goes on over the credits for about 5 minutes, while a string version of "All Along The Watchtowers" plays. Then we see Stein behind the stage, an eager roaring crowd waiting for him, as he walks from his dressing room like a heavy weight boxer, and emerges into flashing lights with a greeting of "What up, Gangstas?" So from the word go, we know Stein is going for seriousness, drama, and a tiny bit of levity(not comedy, and certainly not satire as the plot synopsis suggests). We learn nothing about Steins personal views, other than that he is an impartial curious party, interested in defending free speech, wherever he finds it. Maher(who appears in a brief clip here), and Stein both use editing to their advantage, in order to smear, their subjects, but no matter how rude or impish Maher was he's never really dishonest, Stein and co edit quotations of Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger, to make them into Eugenicists bigots, who all but built the blue prints to Nazi Death camps. Sanger, was a eugenicists but her politics began and ended with giving women birth control and allowing them to make their own decisions. Darwins quote says yes eugenics makes sense, you wouldn't breed inferior animals, etc, but Stein cuts off the next sentence which says, something to the effect that to ignore the weak and helpless, would be to ignore the noblest human virtues, and would be an invitation to great evils.

Richard Dawkins becomes the Darth Vader of the film, mocked in a cartoon, referred to as a reptile, the architect of division, and the climatic end interview pushes past dishonesty to discontinuity. When Stein asks Dawkins if there is any way that Intelligent Design would be possible, Dawkins responds, that if some advanced civilization seeded earth millions of years ago, maybe there could be some molecular signature, but even those advanced creatures would themselves have had to evolve. There the frame freezes, and Stein says "Woah, waoh, waoh, Richard Dawkins believes in Intelligent Design?" This explanation is also called Pansperima which is laughed at earlier in the film as "Darwinists believe in aliens???" There are no interviews with scientists who believe in evolution and religion, according to the film, even if they were to interview them it would be pointless, because they would only just be saying that to save their jobs.

The films charges include, that Darwinism leads to atheism, which leads to moral erosion, which leads to Nazism. The most emotionally manipulative sequence is a tour through a Nazi camp where the handicapped were executed. Darwin also leads to Planned Parenthood and abortion, makes life meaningless, and encourages suicide! While ID, can allow us to discover the existence of God...which will give us the opposite of all that. Societies who worship Gods, will limit themselves in what they will do to other peoples, is another claim. ID is not religious though, and has nothing to do with Creatonism or God. As many of it's proponents say, bringing religion into it is a Darwinist smear campaign to make them seem like fanatics.

There's a Nova documentary called "Intelligent Design On Trial" about the Dover school board case vs. the discovery institute, who was supplying ID books to their schools, school board lawyers won the case when they found early versions of the text books, which had a Freudian slip, and used the word "creationism", where they meant ID...

Very little time is devoted to exploring the cases of any of the scientists fired for their ID convictions. And even less time is given to explaining what advances ID has given science or could lead to. The film focuses mostly on negative proof, the horrors of Darwinism and atheism. And how time and time again, ID proponents are dismissed from their positions, for their controversial views.

I'm prepared to believe that scientists are just as biased as everyone else, if James Watson's comments last year taught us anything it's as much. Maybe Darwin is like Newtonian Physics and one day will discover an Evolutionary equivalent of Einstiens Relativity, but Steins pretentious examination, of an interesting subject, just makes a paranoid, conspiracy ridden mess of things. Its not even remotely funny, and at times downright dishonest. But it is thought provoking in a number ways, like is a movie bad, just because it's wrong? The music and editing was well done. The cartoon where Dawkins, is at the slot machine of life, trying to get all the necessary proteins to create a primordial soup, made me smile a bit. But if you look into any of this films many claims(a 5 to 10 minute goggle search should do it), it falls apart.