Another lifeless Howard film. A really expensive episode of 'BIOGRAPHY'.

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2005)

Everyone that I know who has seen Cinderella Man shares the same opinion as mine - an okay movie, but not really worth recommending or wasting money on to see. It's pretty lifeless and limps along at a snails pace. There is zero emotional impact delivered. What could Ron Howard possibly know about poverty? I find it like all his movies - slow, deliberate and passionless; sure, I shed a tear when Russell Crowe's mad professor gets the Nobel prize but that's about it. The production designer and art director are the only champions in this movie and should get nominated for their beautiful work.
I've read many of the comments and am pretty confident that the slew of '10s' you see as votes for this movie are the result of some massive email forward that got everyone involved with the movie to vote. Even people that do like it would never give it a 10. But 35% of IMDb voters give it a ten? Give me a break.
Save your money. Ron Howard grew up with a craft table next to him, what does he know about hunger? It's like he just picks up a script and says to himself 'ooh, this would be good with a crane shot, and this would be great at 60 frames a second, and when they kiss, we'll play some violins' He's like a movie professor that knows all of the ingredients to a good film but can't mix them together properly. There's no synergy. He will always make films because Hollywood likes him. Mr. Aw Shucks Howard wants to make a movie? Sure, is 100 million enough? Why Roger Ebert touts this movie so much is beyond me. The only reason I can figure is because it's the kind of movie they want Hollywood to make more of - big old fashioned sets - larger than life story - James Horner does the score. It's got all the elements of a great movie but it ISN'T!! I truly believe that if somebody else had directed this it would have been a great movie. It's an unbelievable but true story. But it was really just a way for Howard to waste 120 million of Universal's money.
Let's hope he doesn't screw up The DaVinci code.