The Unbelievers (2013)

Some movies are so great, you could spend hours extolling their virtues.  There are some so bad, you could spend days picking them apart and still not be satisfied that you found everything wrong with it.  Then, there are some that are neutral.  Somehow, you manage to watch the whole thing, but you’re left wondering why.  I came into The Unbelievers thinking it would be some sort of documentary or something on Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss.

Instead, it came across like Chariots of the Gods in that it was just a bunch of random footage strung together.  We get to see one of them talking on a radio show.  Next, we have someone giving a telephone interview.  (We only get to see their side of it.)  We get to see Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame and Penn Jillette, among others, speaking at a rally that Dawkins and Krauss also spoke at.  It’s almost like someone had a bunch of really great footage from other projects, but they didn’t know what to do with it.  Instead of throwing it all out, they gave it to someone to edit together.

This is where it’s going to be difficult to recommend watching this.  There’s no real plot and there isn’t enough of anything for it to be interesting.  I’m not even sure what the context was for each situation.  It’s almost like a best-of album or highlight reel.  It would have been nice if we had been able to see maybe one or two full interviews or lectures.  Instead, we’re off to the next engagement before we can form any interest in what’s going on.

I found this movie on Netflix through their streaming service.  I’m not sure if the DVD comes with any special features, but it would have been interesting to watch the movie with some sort of commentary track from either Dawkins or Krauss (or, preferably, both) explaining what was going on.  There’s so much potential here.  I thought this was going to be something about the advantage of science, as both men are advocates of reason.

This is something you’d probably watch out of desperation after you’ve gone through most of your other streaming options.  In this regard, I’m not entirely upset that I watched it.  At least I didn’t have to wait for it to be mailed to me.  As for my recommendation, It’s kind of like what the police might say in a move crime scene.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.

Official Web Site

THE UNBELIEVERS (2013) - Official Movie Trailer (Richard Dawkins & Lawrence Krauss)

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I’ve never seen a reason why Intelligent Design should be taken seriously.  For those that don’t know, Intelligent Design is the belief that some creator, be it God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, created all of creation by some divine will.  The main proof is that things are so complex that they couldn’t be the result of chance.  It’s Hoyle’s tornado assembling a 747, except that the tornado has had several billion years and produced a lot of things that weren’t planes.  (A more accurate analogy of evolution is the thousand monkeys typing for a thousand years.)

Ben Stein sets out to figure out exactly why Intelligent Design is dismissed by many academics.  He presents several people that were dismissed or otherwise harassed for the mere mention of ID in any sort of credible sense.  He also casts an unfavorable light on Darwin and atheism, associating them with communism and Nazis.  (After all, if you believe in natural selection, eugenics can’t be far behind.)

Yes, it does bother me that Darwin is the only person to put forth a theory of the mechanics of evolution, at least that got any attention.  Yes, I’m all for gathering evidence.  And yes, I do realize that this puts us between a rock and a hard place.  Do we dismiss something because there’s no hard proof or do we give it equal time because it's the only other thing that's trying to get attention?  Part of science is looking at a new theory, but there has to be some method of disproving it.  You have to accept that you might be wrong.

Part of my problem with ID is that it basically passes the buck.  We can’t have something so complex as life, so there has to be a creator.  Where did that creator come from?  If it was aliens, did they evolve on another planet or were they seeded by yet another creator?  If God created us, where did God come from?  This whole thing about God being eternal and not needing a cause is a bit too convenient for me.  Either way, all you’re doing is pushing back the moment of creation at least one step.

I tend to be very skeptical of anyone that presents truth as absolute.  I came into the documentary expecting Stein to present ID as correct, but I found that it was more a way of bringing attention to it.  I don’t mind this so much.  I did find the Communist/Nazi card to be heavy handed.  Images of the Berlin Wall and Nazi symbols were shown repeatedly.

The movie comes off as less of an attack than Religulous, but was just as strange in some parts.  The movie seems to equate belief in Darwinian evolution with atheism.  This was regard where I feel the documentary overreached.  Darwin is held responsible for Nazis’ eugenics programs, for instance.

There seem to be three main aspects to the film.  One is that an attack on ID is an attack on freedom of speech.  Another is that ID should be allowed to be considered.  The third is that Darwin was flat-out wrong.  I’ll admit that just as Einstein followed up on Newton’s work, there should be someone to follow up on Darwin’s work.  However, I think to call Darwin wrong or to say that ID is the answer is going to raise a few eyebrows.  I have a hard time taking the documentary totally seriously.

IMDb page