Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Is It a Critical Success?

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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Is It a Critical Success?

April 24, 2008 by rocky8979

That Expelled is a failure with mainstream critics is beyond debate, but I discuss an interesting point regarding user reviews at Meta Critic and IMDB.

As of this writing, Rotten Tomatoes has Expelled’s Tomatometer reading at 11% and its Average Rating as 3.1/10, both based on 27 critics’ reviews. Meta Critic gives it an average 23/100 for 12 critics’ reviews, and an average of 3.1/10 for 84 user reviews. User reviews at IMDB are similar to Meta Critic’s, 3.7/10, based on 2,132 user ratings. For comparison, Speed 2: Cruise Control has a Tomatometer reading of 4% and Zombie Strippers scores 41%

The distribution of user ratings at Meta Critic and IMDB are quite interesting! Both are strongly bimodal. Indeed, the histograms form a U-shape. At IMDB 33% of users rated it 1, 2, or 3 (good), while 61% rated it 8, 9, or 10 (bad). That only leaves 4% who gave moderate ratings. At Meta Critic, scores assigned by all 84 of the users who rated the movie are not shown, but of the 50 ratings that are shown, ratings are either 0, 1, and 2 (bad), or 8, 9, and 10 (good). This seems to point to posturing or lack of sophistication in one or the other set of reviewers. (As more users rate the movie, the above figures will change a little.)

MRQE doesn’t calculate average ratings, but it links to a dozen reviews that range from 0/4 (Slant Magazine) to 5/5 (Christian Spotlight on the Movies).

Expelled Exposed links to negative reviews, some of which comment on the scientific problems with the movie.

Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic, linked to above, have links to 27 and 12 critics’ reviews.

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Addendum, April 26, 2008: Two reviews, one by a conservative is what you would expect. The other, by a theologian, criticizes the content, rhetoric, and theology of the movie. Read them (at least the latter one) at To the Source.