10 Bad Movies Oscar-Winning Directors Went On To Make

2. The Da Vinci Code - Ron Howard

The Da Vinci Code
Columbia Pictures

Nobody, absolutely nobody, was prepared for how bad The Da Vinci Code would turn out to be.

After all, who'd have predicted that an adaptation of one of the most popular novels of the modern age, starring the prolific Tom Hanks and directed by the esteemed Ron Howard, would be anything less than a slam-dunk?

It's hard to believe, and again, just like Rock The Kasbah, The Da Vinci Code is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the talent involved, which makes its atrocity all the more unforgiving.

The movie's biggest issue is that it tries to be both a flashy blockbuster and a sophisticated Sudoku puzzle all at the same time. It doesn't know whether it wants to thrill you or challenge you, and it fails to do either.

The Da Vinci Code should've been a lighter, Indy-esque adventure with simplified puzzles and interesting, fleshed out characters, but as it stands, watching it feels like solving a boring crossword puzzle on the hardest difficulty.

Howard is more commonly renowned for his challenging dramatic pictures (he won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind) than his glossier big-budget productions, and he wisely stuck to the former in-between his three Dan Brown adaptations.

And that was a smart move, because those in-between films reminded us why he's been considered one of the best directors in the business for a long, long time.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!