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FILM SYNOPSIS: This investigative documentary probes the snubbing of scientists and teachers who teach the theory of intelligent design. Ben Stein, who’s had an eclectic career ranging from presidential speech writer to droning actor (he played the blaze teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), hosts this outing of those determined to prevent the creationist hypothesis. Mr. Stein interviews respected scientists and teachers who have lost their jobs and/or careers because of their desire just to be open to ideas other than evolution.

PREVIEW REVIEW: With touches of cynical humor and moments of thoughtful reasoning, the filmmakers take on a system that has long since said that there is no place for the concept of intelligent design outside Sunday morning worship. Indeed, in the halls of prejudicial academia, spiritual matters have become archaic. And when someone has the nerve to test the theory that man came from fish in the sea or apes in the trees or a big cosmic bang, not only are they ridiculed by many in the field of science, they are also ridiculed by the media (hence the overwhelming negative reviews from the secular press).

What an eye opener this has been. Movie critics, so proud of their liberal and objective stances, are clearly dominated by personal views and agendas. After reading some of the poisoned-pen smears of this film by many of my colleagues in criticism, I have come to the conclusion that they demand not only separation of church from state, but of church from anything. Their so-called open-mindedness only extends so far as to the boundaries of their own beliefs.

I must point out that there are exceptions to that previous statement. I know people in the press who are positive role models for the term “liberal,” in that they debate, but also listen to the views of others. They are, however, few and far between.

Admittedly, the film has an agenda. It mocks the narrowness of man’s all-knowing, all-seeing intellect conceit. Stein and his team use any means to make cartoons of evolutionists, including the actual use of cartoons to do it. Stein attacks them much the way Michael Moore does everyone else. Of course, Moore’s tactics are generally accepted as filmmaking tools to make an entertaining point. Stein’s, however, are mocked as amusement and denounced as disingenuous and deceitful.

The makers of Expelled are using the very stratagem documentarians have used to puncture Detroit, McDonald’s and church hierarchies. Ah, the evolutionary worm turns. The film is thought-provoking, amusing and scary because it points out that our nation’s schools, which once embraced a reverence for God and spiritual concepts, are now manned by those who don’t.

Distributor: Premise