Expelled finished ninth in the box office over the weekend, making $3.1 million—and doing better than Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, the new documentary by Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame), which made $143,000. Still, that's no great take: The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li, grossed $21.4 million this weekend, for example, and The Passion of the Christ made $83.8 million on its first weekend in 2004.
The reviews, for the most part, also have not been very positive. "Simplistic, heavy-handed," says The Hollywood Reporter. "There may be a good argument to make on behalf of teaching Intelligent Design in science class," says Beliefnet, "but this documentary from Ben Stein does not make it." The New York Times calls it "one of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time," and a "conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry," and Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks it's "worse than stupid"; it's "immoral." Even the review from Christianity Today is hardly glowing. —Heather Wax