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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Da Vinci

Well, I was looking to swim upsteam, but instead, went down the drain with the film…
My Da Vinci Code review

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47 Responses to “Da Vinci”

  1. EDouglas says:

    You and me both, David… I hope for Ron Howard that this doesn’t turn into a bigger disaster than The Missing.

  2. David Poland says:

    I think The Missing is one of his best films… and his best adult film. It will eventually be rediscovered.

  3. Eric N says:

    If Dave’s thoughts on the ability of this film to perform at the box office are correct, this film won’t make it too $100M since kids will stay away and adults won’t rush out to see this film due to the bad buzz.
    If this movie ends near Dave’s $160-170M prediction, however, it will be a testament to how popular the DaVinci Code brand is and invulnerable to bad reviews it, in fact, is.
    Had this been the well-made film most of us expected, it probably would have made almost twice that. So I expect Dave’s prediction will be correct…but only because Ron Howard & co. failed to deliver a solid film.
    So kudos to Dave for his prediction…but sadly if DVC makes around $165 it’s only because Mr. Howard didn’t deliver a good flick.

  4. Telemachos says:

    DVC is guaranteed a big opening, sadly, if for no other reason than the hype. However, if it only gets to $150 or so, I think that’ll be seen as a disappointment. Perhaps not a failure or bomb, but a disappointment.
    X3 will disappoint too, at least for anyone who’s expecting it to challenge X2’s grosses. Just a guess, of course.

  5. Mr. Muckle says:

    Well, my intuition was correct. It’s surprising how much you can tell (or can’t tell) from the trailer. If there had been anything worthwhile to show, I’m sure they would have shown it.
    Dave, I agree that the Bourne moview were first rate. What is their connection to DVC, though? Just the thriller genre or did you mean something more?

  6. brack says:

    Well, Ebert liked it, and he’s pretty on point when it comes to thrillers. And he hated the book. I’m reading it right now, and plan to see this regardless of the reviews. I’m thinking this will be critic-proof.

  7. jason says:

    Ebert — my movie-god — has been weird for the last couple of years, softer in the head than the belly lately. Of course, Ebert despised Nic Cage DVC rip-off (NATIONAL TREASURE, was it?) and that did well-over 150 million domestic.
    Online ticket sales for DVC have been much stronger than M:I3, whatever that means. I suppose those ticket buyers come from an older demographic (25+). I think this will still open big (67.2 million, exact), and then have a significant drop-off. Of course, all the critics could be completely out of touch with audiences.

  8. Chucky in Jersey says:

    The right wing tried to ban “Fahrenheit 9/11” and partially succeeded. The right wing is trying to ban “The Da Vinci Code” — and that will prompt people to see it.
    FWIW Columbia is putting “Da Vinci” in theaters that do well with arty product. A 6-screen upmarket/arthouse theater near Princeton is opening 2 prints.

  9. Telemachos says:

    Ebert, IMHO, went off the deep end years ago and has never surfaced since.

  10. Wrecktum says:

    The Missing was appalling. Poland, your sanity is questioned.

  11. jesse says:

    Ron Howard’s best film is THE PAPER, though THE MISSING is definitely better than his Oscar-bait stuff with Crowe.

  12. Spacesheik says:

    What the fuck is going on this summer? How the hell can sure-fire blockbusters like MI3, POSEIDON go down the toilet with a potential for two more not to live up to expectations: DA VINCI and XMEN 3?
    In my opinion this is worse than a slump. It’s a combo of bad films and a slump.
    And trust me SUPERMAN won’t make 200 million either. Or THE OMEN. Or SNAKES ON A PLANE.
    The only one that might go voer $200 is PIRATES 2.
    That’s a pretty said state of things.

  13. Spacesheik says:

    I loved THE MISSING. It was dark, gritty, mystical with real horror overtones, but the climax of the film or lack there of tainted the film for me.
    Watching Tommy Lee Jones get his arse kicked and thrown down a hill AT NIGHT is not my idea of a climax.

  14. Spacesheik says:

    The only Howard film I found satisfying was CINDERELLA MAN.
    I hated BEAUTIFUL MIND (the epilogue with the aged makeup on the two leads was like something out of STAR TREK : TOS)
    I liked RANSOM but the climax was weak.
    PARENTHOOD was blah…nice cast though.
    APOLLO 13 was alright, good cast but nothing special.
    Howard always manages to drop the ball towards the end of the film.

  15. Wrecktum says:

    Apollo 13 is Howard’s “Citizen Kane.” It’s no classic, but it achieves exactly what it set out to do: tell an uplifting, real-life saga with excitement and conviction. Howard’s middle-brow sensibilities are perfectly matched for the material.
    (Doesn’t matter what I say anyway, BTW, because my comments are still not posting).

  16. Aladdin Sane says:

    Oi, my interest in seeing the film went from if I’ve got nothing else on my plate to, well if i have to…
    As for fave Howard films…I love The Missing, Cinderella Man. I like Apollo 13 and have a bit of a crush on Nicole Kidman because of Far & Away…I saw it when I was a kid, and liked it then. Haven’t seen it in probably ten years though…
    As for an all time fave Howard film: American Graffiti! Still heads and shoulders above anything he directed.

  17. Telemachos says:

    PIRATES 2 will make money hand over fist. It and CARS are the only two guaranteed $200+ million grossers this summer, I think.

  18. jeffmcm says:

    Hey Chucky, how did they partially succeed in banning Fahrenheit 9/11 when it grossed $222m worldwide and played in over 2000 theaters at its widest?
    Chucky, I think your energies would be better spent getting angry at _actual_ censorship:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1777136,00.html

  19. Blackcloud says:

    I wasn’t aware that the MPAA could censor anything.

  20. Blackcloud says:

    40 million copies of DVC sold. I wonder how many would have been sold if the right wing hadn’t tried to ban it. 60 million? 80?

  21. palmtree says:

    Willow is one of my sentimental favorties.

  22. Telemachos says:

    How exactly did anyone try to ban DVC (the book)? Linkage to any news reports?

  23. Joe Leydon says:

    You know, I wonder how much “See No Evil” will earn this weekend as “counter-programming” to “The Da Vinci Code”? After all, “Evil” stars Kane, the World Wrestling Entertainment superstar. (He’s the even nastier brother of The Undertaker.) And the WWE television shows have quite a following. AND… it’s apparently a very hard R.

  24. Joe Leydon says:

    You know, I wonder how much “See No Evil” will earn this weekend as “counter-programming” to “The Da Vinci Code”? After all, “Evil” stars Kane, the World Wrestling Entertainment superstar. (He’s the even nastier brother of The Undertaker.) And the WWE television shows have quite a following. AND… it’s apparently a very hard R.

  25. Stella's Boy says:

    But it’s only going to be in about 1,100 theaters Joe, so even with a strong PTA it won’t be making all that much. The director is certainly giving it his all, claiming in one interview that it has the best ending he has ever seen.

  26. jeffmcm says:

    The MPAA isn’t a censorship board, but they denied approval to the original Road to Guantanamo poster as part of their ratings process. It’s the marketing equivalent to giving the movie an NC-17.

  27. bigcpa says:

    Dave- I have to quibble with your $145M estimate unless you’re assuming a terrible hold on this. The last 9 biggest May openings had an avg multiple of 3.5x opening wknd. Even Pearl Harbor did a 3.4x multiple. Are you saying high 50’s this weekend and a 2.5x multiple? That’s hard to picture with tracking through the roof.

  28. Hopscotch says:

    My favorite Howard movie is “Parenthood”. I usually watch it once a year with my family. that sounds incredibly hokey, and it is, but it’s true. We love that damn movie. I like The Missing, like Beautiful Mind (please no stone throwing), and genuinely HATE The Paper, EDTV, Grinch.
    All signs point to bad movie for the Code…but dammit I’ll see it anyway.

  29. Blackcloud says:

    I didn’t even know “See No Evil” was coming out tomorrow until Joe mentioned it. I’ve seen exactly no advertising for it, or publicity, or anything.
    I know the MPAA rejected the poster. My point was that whatever that rejection was, it wasn’t, properly speaking, censorship. Which isn’t to say the MPAA’s decisions–and process–aren’t often irrational.

  30. ROTC says:

    I’m surprised to see that when listing Ron Howard favorites, no one here has mentioned “Night Shift” or “Splash.” Seriously, I have friends who think (bizarrely) that many lines from “Night Shift” are classics…although none are coming to mind at the moment.

  31. EDouglas says:

    Oh, don’t get me wrong… I didn’t mind The Missing, but I think there were very high expectations considering the cast and Howard’s Oscar win and it came and went, lost in the Thanksgiving/holiday season. I really think that studios should stop trying to release adult-oriented movies on that weekend… Solaris, Alexander… those movies never do well when opening on that weekend (and I believe WB has already staked that weekend for one of their movies)

  32. EDouglas says:

    BTW, David, how moronic is it to premiere a movie at Cannes with the line “The French are not to be trusted” (I’m probably paraphrasing)… wonder what the reaction to that was on Tuesday night.

  33. TheManWho... says:

    Ron Howard’s best film remains–Gung Ho. His second best film remains Parenthood. Everything else has been either really good or servicable ever since 1989. Even with the bad buzz or what not towards the DVC. Adults will go see it. Adults love seeing films geared towards them. It’s their whole “THING” as of late. It gets them off the couches, and into the theatres.

  34. Crow T Robot says:

    ROFL — That evil albinos thing is priceless, Poland! I can’t catch my breath from laughing.
    I even remember as a child looking up the word after Goldie Hawn kept saying it in “Foul Play.”
    But seriously, fuck those bastards! Fuck them in their stupid bleached asses!
    (for the record, I thought EdTv was ten times better than The Truman Show)

  35. jeffmcm says:

    ^^Oh, lord. EdTV is awful.

  36. Spacesheik says:

    Best evil albino ever was Dar Robinson in that Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn San Francisco comedy…………with Dudley Moore as the pervert…shit i forgot the name, that was classic

  37. Spacesheik says:

    Oh I forgot about THE PAPER – I fucking love that film, Michael Keaton at this best, with a great cast, Duvall, Close, Robards etc.
    That’s a great film, whenever it pops up I cant avoid watching it; it has a certain manic energy. Besides watching Keaton slug Close is always entertaining.
    EDTV was pure shiite.

  38. Jimmy the Gent says:

    “Where the fuck is 4k?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were deaf, 4-K!”
    A great exchange from Night Shift, one of Howard’s best movies. Splash, The Paper, Apollo 13, Ransom, A Beautiful Mind, and Cinderella Man are all fine movies.
    I’m convinced that Backdraft is actually an inderrated movie. It took me sitting through Ladder 49 to realize how sturdy a piece of pop B-movie craftsmanship it really is. Russell, Baldwin, and Glenn give good, macho performances. DeNiro is a lot of fun as the bookish arson investigator. Sutherland is fine as the crazed arsonist. It wasn’t Sutherland or Howard’s fault that Silence of the Lambs came out earlier that year. They didn’t have a magic ball.
    Ranson does the near-impossible of overcoming Richard Price’s rather bombastic script. It doesn’t help that Price telegraphs all his surprises from the start. The movie is fascinating to watch now for Gibson’s unsympathetic performance. The level of violence in the final showdown was rather startling for a Ron Howard movie. A sign that he is a more complex filmmaker than his critics give him credit for.
    The Missing is awful. The film drags, is uninvolving, and throws in some Indian mysticism that adds nothing to the atmosphere. You can feel Howard wanting to get down and dirty but for some reason hold back. The film sets up erotic tension between Blanchett and her ranch hand but cuts away right when they’re about to have sex. Why> The film needs all the grit it can get. The climatic shout-out is a bust because there is no sense space and placement. The film wasn’t helped by Costner’s surprisingly effective Open Range being released in late August. That movie had one of the best Western shoot-outs ever.
    Howard’s movies with Crowe are a lot darker than most people are willing to admit. A Beautiful Mind doesn’t soften the character of John Nahs. His coldness and capacity for cruelty is right there on dosplay along with his madness–and genius. After Soderbergh’s little-seen King of the Hill (1993) Cinderella Man may be the best movie about the Depression. In a couple of years people will realizee hwo great the movie is, and how amazing Crowe’s performance was. An Giamatti really does some of his best work here. He shows that Joe Gould is more willing to fight than Braddock. The scene where Braddock has to hold him back at the restaurant is a classic.
    The critical response to Da Vinci Code really doesn’t matter in the end. The kind of people who read–and loved–the book are probably the same kind of people who say, “Critics don’t know what a good movie is.” This isn’t Pride and Prejudice we’re talking about here. The movie should do better than The Firm.

  39. Nicol D says:

    “Barney Rubble, what an actor. ”
    Night Shift is one of my favourite comedies.
    Howard has done plenty of good work and is much better given the breadth of his films than his detractors generally give him credit for.
    However, given that DaVinci is garnering perhaps the worst reviews of his career, I may see it eventually out of a pure garish curiosity as to how bad it could actually be.
    Maybe it could be a sophisticated drinking game for historians where they take a drink after every historical innaccuracy in the film.
    I do think some of the extremely bad reviews are a result of the way Sony played the media when they had a mediocre product.
    Oh well…I’m sure they will still make a killing on the weekend.

  40. Pwrgirl says:

    THE FIRM – 81% @ RT
    THE DA VINCI CODE – 17% @ RT
    Sorry, couldn’t resist. The Firm got way better reviews. But this film will pull in fans of the book. But WOM will probably hurt them at the boxoffice from then on.

  41. Keith Hufhonour says:

    The AICN crew enjoyed it.
    Mind you, it’s no Star Wars ROTS.

  42. jeffmcm says:

    A Beautiful Mind is somewhat interesting because in form, it mimics the psychological confusion that Nash himself suffers from; you’re right that it has a lot of dark moments, JTG, but the movie later pretends like a lot of those things never happened, or that they mattered, so that when we get to the end of the movie it’s like it was all a crazy, whirling dream. This is a movie that honestly asks its audience to feel sad when Nash says goodbye to one of the figments of his imagination! In its own clumsy way, Howard made one of the weirdest movies about mental illness ever.

  43. Hopscotch says:

    Cindrella Man was boring. Well-made movie. Looked great, shot great. But in the end, i was just waiting for the fight scenes.
    But I don’t think I can ever forgive Howard for The Grinch…watching that movie made me feel bad. Most bad movies we can just sluff off. “Man, that sucked…moving on.” The Grinch’s badness stuck with me for days. EDTV and that one I thought would end his career.
    And dammit I know it’s a copycat. But I freaking love Willow.

  44. Pwrgirl says:

    Well written analysis, David. Enjoyed it.

  45. bigcpa says:

    Here’s my Variety headline for a huge opening…
    DIVINE TAKE MAKES OPIE’S DEI

  46. KamikazeCamelV2.0 says:

    “(for the record, I thought EdTv was ten times better than The Truman Show)”
    Oh dear lord! Now THAT is scandalous.

  47. James Leer says:

    “A Beautiful Mind doesn’t soften the character of John Nash.”
    If you’re comparing the character to the real-life person he is based on, then it absolutely does soften him into a man that’s nearly unrecognizable.

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