Creation
Newmarket Films | Release Date: January 22, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
14
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireStaff (Not credited)
Thoughtful, moving, and Bettany is brilliant. To be reminded of the power of love to redeem and repair, catch Creation. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Amiel's greatest achievement is that Creation is a deeply human film with moments of genuine lightness and high spirits to go with all the deep thinking. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It helps that most of Creation is about the relationships - Darwin's with his wife and with his daughter. Even if we resist it, even if we don't want to be dragged in, the story of Annie becomes quite moving, almost unbearable. Read full review
75
PremiereAdam Christie
It's a captivating story presented with a fresh and artistic spirit, putting a human face on the man behind the theories. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
It's smart, heartfelt, handsome and just mutated enough to sustain interest in a specialized subject. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Jon Amiel's moody, and strangely moving, vignette of the naturalist is something else entirely. It is more about Darwin, father and husband, than Darwin the scientist. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
I have a feeling the loss of their child and the state of their marriage were what most interested the backers of this film. They must have wanted to make a film about Darwin the man, not Darwin the scientist. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyErnest Hardy
Creation's power lies in its layers, in the way it makes distinctions between religion and faith, and the ways it beautifully (save for one clunky bit of overexplanation) lays out the similarities between religion and science. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
So few movies these days concern themselves with ideas of any sort that a drama like this one, about a man humbled by the consequences of his own intellectual breakthrough, seems even more powerful. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The film is never less than intelligent and never more than accomplished. Read full review
65
NPRBob Mondello
In fact, given its subject matter, Creation should arguably be bolder and more shocking if it wants to survive among the fittest at the multiplex. Audiences with so many flashier pictures available may not regard a straightforward period biopic as a natural selection. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Creation is a superbly creative exercise for its star, Paul Bettany, who plays Charles Darwin. But it's a subdued and meandering portrait of the conflicts underlying the development of the theory of evolution. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicKerry Lengel
Slow-moving and occasionally ponderous in tone, "Creation" nonetheless is an intriguing portrait of a man and a time that changed everything. Read full review
50
VarietyDennis Harvey
Isn't about science vs. faith so much as that well-worn dramatic hook, the loss of a child. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
What begins as a multilayered tale of scientific discovery and cultural history gets reduced to a single maudlin idea: that even Charles Darwin had to evolve. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
There are good performances and fleeting moments of exquisite moviemaking, but the experience as a whole is an evolutionary dead end. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
This one means well, a kiss-of-death review if there ever was one. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Some questions just can't be answered by science, and the quandary of why Creation is so poundingly dull is one of them. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Creation is fatally weakened by an excess of pathos; in a Darwinian universe, it would be quickly swallowed up by a leaner, fitter movie. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
As angst-filled as if it were "Amadeus" and "Lust for Life" rolled into one. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
What the Charles Darwin biopic Creation mainly creates is a do-over for Paul Bettany: This time he gets to have a beautiful mind. Read full review
50
TimeMary Pols
Bettany's Darwin always has a chill or a case of the sweats, tummy ache or trembling hands. He has our sympathy initially, but the movie bathes us in such general despair that the natural instinct soon becomes a desire to tell him to buck up. We do believe in survival of the fittest, after all. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
One of those tepid, genteel biopics that's far too busy ennobling its hero to bother giving him any recklessly interesting personality traits. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
As a journey through Darwin's discoveries, Creation fails, although, given the intricacy and the patience of his working methods, it is hard to imagine how such a film might succeed. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
The prospect that this role would officially shift Bettany to a bigger stage, taking him from the character roles that have become his specialty to leading man status, dies a sort of Darwinian death from bad plotting. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
There are sparks here that suggest the smarter movie a more scientifically minded director--say, David Cronenberg--might have made. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
What we see on screen is a lumbering, flat-footed fancy-dress melodrama. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It's impossible to say who's more unhinged: Darwin, caught between faith and reason, or the filmmakers. Read full review
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