Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

With Expelled, no one can accuse the documentarians of nuance. Most of the blame here falls on writer Ben Stein (former Nixon speechwriter and host of the game show Win Ben Stein’s Money), who also serves as the tour guide through what he posits are the deadly halls of academia, where scientific careers are ruined by the mere suggestion that one believes in the alternative theory of “intelligent design.” Whether or not this is an actual problem is undermined by Stein’s ham-fisted approach. Of course, it’s pretty much the same approach that undermines his liberal contemporaries, an emphasis on personality over message. But at least Michael Moore makes the time spent sort of entertaining—here, it’s just talking heads being aggrieved and Stein’s glib but not particularly enlightening observations. He doesn’t help his argument by indulging in overreaching insinuations repeatedly, from using such loaded phrases as “Neo-Darwinists” to even implying that Darwin’s theories led straight to the gates of Auschwitz.