Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Host Ben Stein (who co-wrote the script with Kevin Miller and Walt Ruloff) and director Nathan Frankowski have an inflammatory theme—or at least as inflammatory as Stein’s droning voice will allow: The academic establishment, in thrall to Darwinist orthodoxy, is stifling free speech and punishing those who espouse the gussied-up version of creationism that is intelligent design. The movie is unpersuasive, but it’s amusing in the way it tarts up the message with free-association images of the Berlin Wall, Stalin’s May Day parades and the Holocaust, interspersed with talking heads on both sides of the so-called controversy, and all underscored with the sinister thrum of Robbie Bronnimann and Andy Hunter’s music. Amusing, too, to wonder what Michael Moore would think to see his techniques applied to a right-wing cause.