On the Origin of Species is one of the most powerful written works out there, completely throwing away the notion that we were created from God but we just evolved from a form of primate. This is where the story Creation comes in, following Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) as he tries to put together his famous work and trying to cope with the death of his ten year old daughter a few months prior. Through the struggles with his own family life to defying the religion he stands for by publishing this work, he tries to find a way to make it.

Creation serves as a beautiful period piece with a good visual direction that evenly teeters back and forth between the struggle to write the book and to get past the grief of his daughter’s passing. Bettany dives head first into the role and proves to be the only person on the screen worth paying attention to, not purely because he’s playing Charles Darwin, but because he’s practically the only convincing one within the cast. He adds more layers to Darwin, who is already encompassed within the script that John Collee wrote, making you care more about the man behind the book as it slowly blossoms within the realms of his mind.

Jon Amiel tries to convey the visuals on camera to further bring along the story, but scenery can only do so much when you have something that is only satisfactory at the most. The prodution design is wonderfully put together but at the same time a little too distracting from the decent story line that easily can be derailed given the proper lighting and background distractions of the set.

Although the execution of the story of Charles Darwin prior to “On the Origin of Species” is done fine to an extent, in the end this film becomes another period piece that at times threatens to become something better than what it is, only to jump right back to where it was previously.

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Tags: Charles Darwin, Creation, On the Origin of Species, Paul Bettany