Except for 2013's underappreciated racecar drama Rush and an acclaimed Beatles documentary from 2015, Ron Howard has spent most of the last decade doing genre work that's ranged from solidly diverting (
Solo, Angels & Demons) to outright dismal
(Inferno, The Dilemma). That's a shame since I'd say Howard actually works best as a filmmaker when he's doing more grounded dramas. Not every foray into this field works for him, as seen by the messy
A Beautiful Mind, but he does tend to have a better track record here since, among other factors, he's usually working with better scripts on the likes of
Rush or
Apollo 13 than when he's helming mechanically crafted movie adaptations of
The Grinch of
The Da Vinci Code.
