# Ron Howard = yawn **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 18, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299 "2006-05-18T18:53:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/1 "2006-05-18T18:53:33Z")
Over at [Rottentomatoes.com](http://Rottentomatoes.com) the reviews for the DaVinci Code are coming in and it is as I feared. Ron Howard takes the bestselling novel and turns it into dull vanilla. I have come to expect nothing less of the man. I haven’t read the novel but I was kind of hoping to get caught up in the excitement by seeing the movie. Looks like Howard took all the fun out of it. Howard must be the king of taking no risks and turning good subject matter into play-it-safe films worthy of Lifetime television. Cinderella Man- Heard it was good but didn’t see it. Was just too typical a film. Nothing we haven’t seen before. Would have been a good one to take grandma to. A Beautiful Mind- Saw this one. Predicatable. Boring. No chances taken. Not sure who voted this one to get Best Picture. Maybe the senior citizen academy members? The Grinch- Again, how can you take someone like Jim Carrey and make him boring? Put him in a Ron Howard movie. Apollo 13- I’ll take The Right Stuff over this thing any day. We all knew the story. Could you at least add something to it and create a mood of suspense? I guess not. Backdraft- More exciting subject matter turn into forgetable melodrama. Does anyone even remember the story line? Sure had some nice fire effects huh? Suspenseful nail-biting? Sorry, just more vanilla flavored yawns. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Corcoran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Captain\_Corcoran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Corcoran)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/2 "2006-05-18T19:02:11Z")
Howard is the blandest of the bland and has been almost since the start of his directorial career. (I guess _Night Shift_ had some personality to it.) He’s a skilled moviemaker, knows how to place the camera and get good performances from the actors, but he always seems to drain all the quirks or edge out of the material he handles. He’s like the modern equivalent of one of those faceless MGM contract directors of the '30s – a modern-day Robert Z. Leonard. On the other hand, some of his projects as a producer (rather than a director) have taken more risks; while Howard didn’t create “Arrested Development,” it was his idea to do it in that fragmented, mock-reality style. ---
**Author:** ![archmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@archmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/archmichael)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/3 "2006-05-18T19:09:37Z")
Makes you wonder what he would have done to Homer’s script ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/4 "2006-05-18T19:16:21Z")
Ron Howard is a director who personifies the descriptor “adequate.” He’s almost compulsive about keeping his movies safe and unchallenging. His movies are marginally watchable as long as he doesn’t attempt to achieve significance (real or pretend), in which case his total lack of unique vision becomes painfully apparent (e.g. _A Beautiful Mind_). He makes Big Macs, not films. There’s nothing wrong with that, necessarily; a lot of people enjoy Big Macs. As long as he isn’t trying to convince anyone that his Big Mac is veal carpaccio, he’s entirely, well, adequate. He’s basically Chris Columbus with better craft. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/5 "2006-05-18T19:27:55Z")
Well, I haven’t forgiven him for what he did to The Grinch. But beyond that, I’m not sure I know what films he has made. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/6 "2006-05-18T19:45:46Z")
I have to disagree with many cases here. I didn’t see **Grinch** (although, from what I’ve seen and heard, I wouldn’t have liked it), but I realy did like **Apollo 13** and **Cinderella Man** , which were _not_ safe, predictable, and adequate. I really did like **Splash** , which was very original (and, yeah, I’m familiar with other mermaid movies – that’s not what I mean). Howard’s had his failures, but overall, I like his stuff a lot more than many other directors’. gonna have to see the **Da Vinci Code** before I pass judgment on it. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/7 "2006-05-18T20:09:55Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Apollo 13- I’ll take The Right Stuff over this thing any day. We all knew the story. No, we all didn’t know the story. I was two years old when that happened. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/8 "2006-05-18T20:12:01Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Does anyone even remember the story line? Firefighter setting fires to protest (and kill those responsible for) closing too many firehouses. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/9 "2006-05-18T20:30:24Z")
I agree about his output in general, but I thought _Apollo 13_ was excellent. And he did put all of his weight behind _Arrested Development_, as noted, which was not vanilla at all. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/10 "2006-05-18T21:02:31Z")
Howard’s movies are visually polished, but lacking elsewhere. The scripts he picks are often flat and lifeless. His films are virtually nuance-free. He doesn’t leave anything for his audiences to figure out for themselves. One moment that really crystallized this for me was a scene in A Beautiful Mind in which John Nash is taken into some secret government room and shown a film of a nuclear test blast while the Ed Harris character explains what it is. Did he really think Nash wasn’t aware of nuclear explosions? I think he just took his audience for such fools that he need to lecture us about this. I never did make it more than halfway through that film. It was so lifeless. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/11 "2006-05-18T21:08:10Z")
Agree totally, and what is funny is when one of his movies tanks, or is not a huge critical and commercial success (Edtv, Cinderalla Man), he blames others, like the media, as if he can’t fathom why one of his films wouldn’t be a hit. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/12 "2006-05-18T21:12:12Z")
Although I agree with the general assesment of Howard as a bland director, I thought _A Beautiful Mind_ was noteworthy as one of the few films that showed how real a schizophrenic’s hallucinations are. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/13 "2006-05-18T23:08:43Z")
Wow. I must have very pedestrian tastes because I really liked “A Beautiful Mind”. It even prompted me to read the book (which was drier than the Sahara, btw, but still fascinating). ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/14 "2006-05-18T23:43:45Z")
Didn’t he do _Parenthood_ with Steve Martin? That was a good film. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/15 "2006-05-18T23:49:13Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Apollo 13- I’ll take The Right Stuff over this thing any day. We all knew the story. Could you at least add something to it and create a mood of suspense? I guess not. Can’t agree with this one in the least. Apollo 13 was an excellent film. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/16 "2006-05-18T23:52:38Z")
And “Willow” which is freakin billant! It’s a good primer for LOTR. ---
**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/17 "2006-05-18T23:55:18Z")
Not only was Apollo 13 fantastic, but so was… [Willow](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096446/) It didn’t do well at the box office, but this was an awesome medieval fantasy film! ---
**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/18 "2006-05-18T23:56:41Z")
> [@Push You Down](#): > > And “Willow” which is freakin billant! > > It’s a good primer for LOTR. Damn you Push You Down! PS. I am the greatest Swordsman that ever lived! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/19 "2006-05-19T00:11:30Z")
> [@Captain Lance Murdoch](#): > > Howard’s movies are visually polished, but lacking elsewhere. The scripts he picks are often flat and lifeless. His films are virtually nuance-free. He doesn’t leave anything for his audiences to figure out for themselves. This was most obvious to me during the last ten minutes of _Ransom_, which up to then had been a pretty good film. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299/20 "2006-05-19T02:50:23Z")
I think Apollo 13 was a masterpiece. I remember seeing it in a packed theater and two hours into the movie you couldn’t hear a pin drop. The audience was totally enthralled even though most of them knew how it ended. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ron-howard-yawn/357299.md?page=2)