Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Creation is a strange film to review. It isn't that great which can be inferred by the fact that it was barely noticeable critically or at the box office but it's a nice portrayal of Charles Darwin by Paul Bettany, encompassing his private life with his wife during the time he was working on "On the origin of species. The film is a good look for anyone interested in the famed English naturalist, but it isn't genre defining. Worth a peak for the performances by Bettany and Connelly (who were actually married then) playing Charles and Emma Darwin.

I won't rate Charles Darwin nor its theory, but this movie presents badly its life and the story of its book, it's just some boring stories of his life. I decide to watch the movie when I knew that it's based on a book of one of his grandsons, and the second good thing that I like was the presentation of Darwin's Period in England. however, I think that this movie wasted my time.

Creation (what an ironic title) is about Darwin's life prior to the publishing of On the Origin Of the Species. Paul Bettany (Silas the albino monk in the Da Vinci Code, Charles in A Beautiful Mind) plays Darwin. He is on screen almost the entire movie. Darwin has all manner of troubles. He is physically ill. He has tremors, hallucinations and phobias. Behind it all is his terror of Christians and their extreme rejection of his life work. He is no hero. He has not the bravery to tell the Christians where to stuff it. Without a combative nature, it is just too difficult to oppose almost the entire society. Even his wife disapproves of his work.The movie is also about the primitive state of medicine in Victorian times. Darwin loses his bright inquisitive daughter despite all the inept attempts to cure her. In hindsight, they did more harm than good.The special effects of the hallucinations remind me of those in a Beautiful Mind, where, like the characters, you have trouble keeping track of what is real. They could have used some hallucinations with morphing to illustrate his insight about gradual change, but they didn't.Unfortunately, the movie does almost nothing to explain evolution, other than making a parallel between artificial and natural selection. Neither does it show the debates. I read the book in the 1960s. Its placid prose gave no hint of the sturm and drang lay behind its composition.Benedict Cumberbatch plays Joseph Hooker, a very charming character, who played a big part in Darwin's life. Unfortunately, he was on screen only briefly.I suspect the low ratings of this movie have two sources: creationists who rejected it without even bothering to see it, and because it is just so sad seeing Darwin, considered the greatest scientist of all time, suffer at the hands of ignorant Christians.

It could have been so easy for the makers of Creation to say, let's make a movie that focuses on the writing of Darwin's Origin of Species, with all the controversy and the turmoil that accompanied it. Ironically, In choosing not to make this the focus of the movie, Creation ends up being a surprisingly competent biography for a movie that is not even two hours. What the movie does best is to single out a chapter in the Darwin tale, and get intimate with it. Creation is largely about Darwin's inability to write, or do much else, because the memories of his dead first born daughter, are haunting him, as he is under the impression that his lovely wife Emma holds him responsible for her death. Paul Bettany has always been an actor with potential. He hit thew ball out of the park, opposite Russell Crowe in MAster and Commander, but since then he hasn't gotten any useful roles. With Creation, he brings Darwin the role to life vividly. You can see it in his eyes, and read it in his body language, Bettany puts his heart and soul into the movie. Opposite him, Jennifer Connoly, while she doesn't get much screen time, also brings her best game to the screen.Creation is the way I like my biographies to be. It doesn't preach, or tell lies, or attempt to be anything bigger than it should be. It focuses on the people, which is the most important thing, and in the end the film works nicely.