IN THE year that marks the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work On The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection, Hollywood gets in on the act.

Casting real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as the pre-eminent scientist and his wife, Jon Amiel's beautifully-crafted biopic focuses on the turbulent period before Darwin committed his radical theories to parchment and changed the course of science.

To suggest that homo sapiens and all other species were the result of millions of years of evolution was nothing short of heresy: natural selection trumps divine intervention.

STAR RATING: ***