text: I wish I could tell you that this film is as exciting as the theories it espouses. But I can't. Another species could have come and mutated while I waited for some action. For such a controversial man, Darwin lived the most conventional life. If you didn't know about the mad theories, you could almost mistake him for a stamp collector.<br /><br />The film-makers have cast Darwin as a dullard which does him a disservice. Even when he briefly loses his mind due to his tireless theorising, it wasn't interesting to watch. Maybe great thinkers are dull people? I don't know what I was expecting: a forehead-banging eccentric with wild hair and eyes espousing his love of all things simian, the glint of madness straining from a furrowed brow? A long-haired hermit who babbled to animals? A head-cradling lunatic with eyes lit up like beacons of truth? All of the above would have been great. This is the movies for Scorsese's sake.<br /><br />But there was none of that. No lightning, no thunder, no wonder, no awe. Just Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly fresh from the Subtle as Breath School of Method Acting. I imagine that someone with Darwin's ideas had a brain like a speeding train so why did this film just pootle along - chug chug chug - like a slow winter? The disappointment is immeasurable.