“Mocked and belittled” in reviews by the secular press from coast to coast, Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed finally opened in theaters today (here’s a theater locator). If you go see it this weekend (and beyond), let us know what you think. (Please note: This thread has been set up so that those who have actually seen the movie can comment, not to rehash past debates, arguments, etc. If I have to, I’ll borrow Lynn’s scepter!)

Here are links to WORLD’s recent coverage on this documentary:

• Megan Basham’s interview with Ben Stein.
• Marvin Olasky’s review of the film.
• Hope Hodge’s interview with Associate Producer Mark Mathis.

And if you missed it, here’s an excellent video interview of Ben Stein by R.C. Sproul.

The editorial staff at WORLD has assembled another outstanding issue, and it’s available this morning online. Plus, you can now receive the magazine’s content through your favorite news reader by subscribing to our RSS feed.

Here are some highlights from the April 19 issue:

Cover story: In this special “Cities” issue, discover why helping to shape cities is an increasingly important Christian calling.

Campaign 2008: Rebecca Miller reports on how Barack Obama’s supporters are chipping away at Hillary Clinton’s lead in Pennsylvania.

Interview: Megan Basham talks to Ben Stein, whose new documentary Expelled gives macro-evolutionary theory a deserved hard time, but he plans to have fun with it along the way.

Religion: Alisa Harris previews Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States this month, especially how security issues in a post-9/11 era make it difficult for him to reach out and touch the masses.

Thoughts: Insightful columns by Joel Belz, Gene Edward Veith, Janie B. Cheaney, Mindy Belz, Andrée Seu, and Marvin Olasky.

For all you non-subscribers out there, we’d love to have you join our family of readers and not miss out on all WORLD has to offer. Click here for more info. (Subscriptions make great gifts, too!)

And don’t forget to subscribe to the new RSS feed.

The movie won’t hit theaters for another two weeks, but already the buzz about Ben Stein’s Expelled is burning up the blogosphere and overwhelming the web. A little over a week ago, Nielsen’s BlogPulse rated the documentary the hottest blog topic online. Since Friday, Hope Hodge’s WoW interview with the film’s associate producer, Mark Mathis, has generated 140-plus comments and was still going strong as of yesterday. And speaking of yesterday, Marvin Olasky’s review of Expelled from the current issue of WORLD set, as far as I can tell, the one-day record of views of a single article over at our WORLDMag.com site, accounting for nearly one quarter of our overall traffic. If all of these people talking and reading about the movie actually go see it, there’s no doubt it’ll be a hit. And one can imagine the amount of discussion that’ll ensue once everyone has actually seen the film.

Mark Mathis is Associate Producer of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a forthcoming documentary that says the Darwinists of American universities are suppressing scientific inquiry.

World on the Web: What makes Expelled different from other “radical idea” documentaries, like the ones Michael Moore has produced?

Mark Mathis: This film is not told from a conservative worldview, though that accusation will happen. Most of the documentary films that have been well done are driving an agenda that comes from the left side of the political spectrum. Films that do (come from this perspective) are less ambitious, more true to documentary form. Our agenda is that science needs to be free, and that the freedom’s not there. When you come to a Michael Moore or Al Gore film, the message is, “we have the answer; and everyone else, just shut up.” Expelled wants to do the opposite: stop the shutting down of scientific inquiry and return freedom to science.

WoW: Who is the film’s target demographic?

Mathis: Our target is the general public. The public is not aware of the materialist, atheistic agenda that is driven by elitists. We know that within the academic elitist institutions across this country, we are going to persuade almost absolutely no one. They’ve stopped looking at the evidence in an unbiased way.

WoW: And who do you think will be most interested in seeing this?

Mathis: People who care about freedom. People who are sick and tired of elitists dictate to them what truth is, people who believe that when they look at nature, they see reason to pursue scientific inquiry, and people who believe in God will have a strong interest in seeing this film. Having a free society will ultimately show us the truth.

WoW: In the documentary, you draw a connection between Darwinist scientists and the Nazi ideology. Do you think that approach will draw criticism?

Mathis: Should we shy away from the truth? People are uncomfortable that a materialist philosophy can lead to a phenomenon like Nazism. Just because it makes people uncomfortable doesn’t mean we should leave it out. All the more reason we should leave it in. It’s not a guaranteed outcome, and we’re not saying that. But…we know that Adolph Hitler was a staunch Darwinist, and those ideals consciously drove him. It was a consequence. The unfortunate thing in this is that there are far too many people have misappropriated Nazism to their own agenda. It’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” syndrome.

WoW: What was the most interesting interview you conducted, and why?

Mathis: The one with (Dr.) Will Provine of Cornell University. What I can’t say about most of the people I interviewed is that Will Provine is something of a model of what we should be seeing in most of the universities today. He believes that Neo-Darwinism is a fact and there is no God, but he allows people who disagree with him to speak in his classes. It’s very healthy for science, and it forces his students, who think like he does, to sharpen their arguments. That’s what science should do.

WoW: Why did Ben Stein seem a good choice to star in this film?

Mathis: Three reasons: one, Ben Stein is an accomplished person on multiple levels; an author of more than 30 books, a lawyer, an economist, an entertainer, a pitchman. He writes for the New York Times, and he’s a commentator for Fox News. Two, we wanted someone with a name in the culture, so when we talked about Expelled, it wasn’t just a documentary film. Three, we wanted to do a film where people weren’t going to see the film for a science lesson. They want to learn something, yes, but they want to be entertained along the way.