Customer Reviews

Creation [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have a standing rule not to pay more than $23 for any Blu-ray movie (no need to encourage Hollywood marketeers). That said, I broke that rule for this movie after hearing an interview with the writer and producer on NPR (National Public Radio) then discovered that this disc was worth every penny. One thing you will come away with is the fact that there were many similarities between life in 1859 and today. For example, people of both times were split between theism, deism, and atheism. (Contrary to popular belief, Darwin was somewhere between deist and theist). So does "Darwin's Theory do away with God" as Huxley said, or does it "replace the Genesis story with something more pragmatic"? I prefer to believe that later but you should make up your own mind.

Of the many fine books, movies, video productions and museum displays produced last year, this one certainly takes the cake. Magnificent production and direction as well as "A-list" acting make this a total delight. And let's not forget the book that it is based on: written by a great, great, grandson of the Darwins with access to private, family materials. What's not to love?
I am today ordering the blu-ray version, but this review is based upon the theatrical release which I happened to catch in New York City in February. I don't believe it was released generally in the US, which is a shame.
I can't recommend the movie (and book) highly enough!

I wanted to enjoy "Creation" more than I did. Certainly, the focus upon Darwin's private life - as a husband and a father - is an interesting way to portray the man. Yet, Toby Jones' electrifying portrayal of Thomas Henry Huxley - even though brief - had more moment in the drama than anything the actor did as Darwin. What I did not like about the film is that it made the tremendous genius look like a hallucinating madman in the same way that Vincent Van Gogh is often described as a mentally disturbed artist rather than show these men as the thoughtful intellectuals both of them truly were. It is true that Darwin was emotionally wounded by the deaths of his daughters and that he did worry about the effect of his great idea on contemporary Christian understanding as well as his wife's profound religious views. But actually his wife was far more supportive of his enterprise than is shown in the film...and Charles Darwin's sudden rush to publish the "Big Book" after 1858 was probably spurred by the fear that another scientist would take the credit for the insights he had developed for decades. In summary, see "Darwin's Darkest Hour" for a far more balanced view of the critical year before publication of "On the Origin of Species." Alternatively, there is a very, very good "biography" of Darwin on DVD entitled "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" which is the opening movie in the 7 part "Evolution" series from PBS.

But I will say that the scenes of Darwin interacting with a zoo Orangutan are magical. Now that's something to marvel at.

The film is a marvelous masterpiece of a great theme and artistry. All actors are very successful. I am so glad that a film is now available for all of us to see the human side of Darwin and his extraordinary endevour.

As stated in the title, this movie does not attempt to provide any grounds for the Theory of Evolution. Instead, it depicts a realistic story of Darwin's personal struggle that occurs when his faith, his knowledge and his grief over the death of his daughter collide.

The move is rich with imagery. The scenes are beautiful and the acting by Bettany and Connelly are brilliant.

The movie is, at times, dense with flashback scenes and information and requires either the use of "playback" for review or "pause" for discussion. I love films such as these.

Keep up the good work BBC.

I enjoyed this documentary as a movie first and then as a documentary that seemed more realistic of what kind of man I perceived Charles Darwin to be.
It was excellent on showing the side of him that must have struggled with his faith about creation and God.
I really liked it that it didn`t seem to try show that the director or producers were trying
to push more of their world view through the movie.
I truly believe Darwin died an agnostic and not an atheist and the movie seem to portray this.
I can amagine how Darwin must have struggled. So much it made him physically sick.
I especially enjoyed the special features that were after the movie about what Darwin actually
found and did not find.
Which left you with the conclusion of making up your own mind about his theory.

I own both of these movies and I now like both. I did not initially like Creation for all the drama. But it does focus on the family events and the ethical issues...has he killed God?....quite well.

If you have to watch only one, I would go for Darwin's Darkest Hour. The family drama is there, but the science is there too. Plus it maintains a cool scientist in the background, whereas the Creation Darwin has severe psychological problems.

The book Creation is based on seems to be more factual than the movie. Annie in fact died of a form of tuberculosis.

Creation does outline how far science leaped just then, but how backward medicine still was. Of course, the stimulus to research evolution and biology helped medcicine along as well, at least by 1900.

I have not reviewed Darkest Hour, but I give it 4 as well. Emma Darwin comes out more like the Dr Who sidekick girl in parts of the movie. So the acting was better in Creation, although the script is more fictionalized.

Sad, Beautiful, Torn, and yet humble. I cried, I laughed, I was moved. The story was fantasticlly written, and Paul Bettanys performance was awesome. Saw it at the cinema, came home and had to buy it immediately. Pauls performance is definately worth an Oscar. A fantastic movie, you must have.

Many of the reviews I had seen suggested this film was slow moving, but I thought it was excellent. It was nice to see an historical film about a truly important person that yet told a satisfying personal story. When there are scenes giving some of the scientific background, they were filmed in a particularly striking way -- I almost wish there had been more of them. This was a very satisfying movie. (One interesting thing is that Paul Bettany got to play a hallucinatory character in A Beautiful Mind, while in this movie he gets to play a character who spends a good bit of the movie interacting with a hallucinatory character. An interesting turnaround.)

CREATION is not a film about the development of Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and if that is what the audience expects it will be disappointed. What this little film presents instead is the midlife crisis (the film takes place in 1858-59 and Darwin was born in 1809, having completed his 1840 'Voyage of the Beagle' after the famous time he spent from 1831 -36 on the HMS Beagle as a naturalist gathering data) when Darwin had made his observations of nature and natural survival of the fittest and was struggling with writing of 'The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection', a book that would threaten to incise his relationship not only with Christian society but also with his fervently religious wife Emma. It is a story of the tortured man coping with the dichotomy between science and religion, between a man obsessed with his scientific discoveries while longing to be a good father to the children he loved. Yes there is discussion of his scientific theories, made mostly in his stories he told his children, but the book on which it is based, Randal Keynes 'Annie's Box' (Keynes is the great great grandson of Darwin) - a book of diaries and quiet notes about the Darwin and his oldest daughter Annie whose death as a young girl nearly destroyed Darwin - is more concerned with opening the windows to the family life of the great scientist than expounding the scientific theory we all know so well. John Collee's screenplay serves the film well as does the careful direction of Jon Amiel.

Charles Darwin's presence is illuminated by Paul Bettany's performance and the difficult role of his wife Emma is played with great sensitivity by Bettany's real wife Jennifer Connelly. The pivotal role of Annie (Darwin's eldest daughter who seemed to have inherited all of the curiosity and imagination of Darwin) is portrayed by first time actress Martha West (daughter of actor Dominic West): it is Annie's death that alters the course of this story, that event and the final reconciliation between Darwin and Emma after Emma actually reads the completed book (The Origin of Species). The supporting cast is excellent: Jeremy Northam is the unforgiving cleric Reverend Innes, the other Darwin children are very natural in their acting - Freya Parks, Harrison Sansostri, Christopher Dunkin - and Toby Jones adds sparks as Thomas Huxley who declares that Darwin's theories prove that God is dead! The cinematography by Jess Hall is excellent - especially in the scenes involving man's first connection with the apes. The musical score by Christopher Young rather blurs all the action into a Victorian mush, but the actors and director are able to make us forget that ill-conceived add-on. In all, the film is a family story - it just so happens that the family is that of a great man about whose personal life we know very little. Impressive work. Grady Harp, June 10