Reception
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was not screened in advance for film critics, and when the film was released it received negative reviews. As of April 26, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 90% of its top film critics reviewed it negatively. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 20 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.
Response to the movie from conservative Christian groups was generally positive, praising the movie for its humor and for focusing on what they perceive as a serious issue. American Spectator said that the "only complaint about Expelled, scheduled for April release, is that its ending came all too soon." Screen Rant gave Expelled 4.5 out of 5 stars, saying that "your opinion of the film will with almost complete certainty be predicted by your opinions on Darwinism vs Intelligent Design."
Response from other critics was negative, particularly from those in the science media. The film's extensive use of Michael Moore-style devices was commented upon, but the film was variously characterized as boring, exaggerated, and unconvincing. Others found it insulting and offensive to the religious. The Globe & Mail's film review gave the film a score of 0 and called it "an appallingly unscrupulous example of hack propaganda". Vue Weekly called it an "anti-science propaganda masquerading as a Michael Moore-ish fool's journey, full of disingenuous ploys, cheap tricks, and outright mendacity." While noting that the film is technically well made (with good photography and editing), Roger Ebert lambasted the content of the film:
This film is cheerfully ignorant, manipulative, slanted, cherry-picks quotations, draws unwarranted conclusions, makes outrageous juxtapositions (Soviet marching troops representing opponents of ID), pussy-foots around religion (not a single identified believer among the ID people), segues between quotes that are not about the same thing, tells bald-faced lies, and makes a completely baseless association between freedom of speech and freedom to teach religion in a university class that is not about religion.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued a statement to say it was "especially disappointed to learn that the producers of an intelligent design propaganda movie called Expelled are inappropriately pitting science against religion." It went on to say the organization "further decries the profound dishonesty and lack of civility demonstrated by this effort", and said the movie "seeks to force religious viewpoints into science class – despite court decisions that have struck down efforts to bring creationism and intelligent design into schools."
Stein received the Freedom of Expression Award for his work in Expelled from the Home Entertainment Awards at Entertainment Merchants Association's Home Media Expo 2008.
Read more about this topic: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
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