Ed Wood

Starring: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, G.D. Spradlin, Vincent D'Onofrio, Bill Murray, Mike Starr, Lisa Marie, Ned Bellamy
Directed by: Tim Burton
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama
1994

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) is passionate about making movies, and despite a lack of talent, he is driven to finance his films to finally achieve the success he thinks he deserves.

Review:

Tim: I remember watching Plan 9 From Outer Space and marveling at how truly wretched a film that was. It's one of the few films to which I've given my lowest possible rating. So, I was looking forward to Ed Wood to learn more about the man behind that epic disaster. This film tells Ed's story, but it's really played up for laughs. It's an interesting approach- this film isn't really a biopic, as much as a comedic piece of entertainment. Sure, you might learn that Wood was a cross dresser, if you didn't know that before. But, will you really gain any meaningful insight into him as a person? That's debatable. It was a different approach to this kind of movie, for sure. While the film deserves some credit for that, the movie is ultimately too lightweight.

Tim Burton crafts a film here about a collection of offbeat characters. Ed Wood might be the ringleader, but he surrounded himself with misfits and outcasts as well. It was intriguing to watch all these people come together around a man who was truly oblivious as to how little talent he had. That's the aspect of the film I wished Burton would have explored more. Wood saw himself as a storyteller and his passion was to tell stories through movies. But, by all accounts, he was terrible at that. We see his one-take approach, we understand the hardships he faced in financing his films. But, we never really dive into his brain. Why did he persist in making movies that everyone hated? How did he really feel about his films? Did he acknowledge their weaknesses or was he totally oblivious? How did he deal with criticism, with the lack of success? We see this aspect of his character played for laughs. His resiliency and obliviousness is a joke in the film. That doesn't help us understand what really made Wood tick.

Johnny Depp plays Wood fine, but he embraces the moronic side of him a little too gleefully for my taste. It felt like Depp was playing a caricature, rather than trying to help us understand Wood. That was a little disappointing. I wouldn't call this one of Depp's better performances. Now, the movie is helped by a remarkable performance by Martin Landau. He really was so incredible as Bela Lugosi. The performance was odd, but it felt authentic. Landau has fun with it, but embraced the bitter, broken parts of Lugosi. Landau's performance is the strongest of the film. It was so good, in fact, that he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Performance. I was a little surprised at that- his performance is very good, but I'm not quite sure it was to that level. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed Landau here. Sarah Jessica Parker was fine, but she's never spectacular. Bill Murray was decent in a smaller role, but a little over-the-top. It was fun seeing Vincent D'Onofrio as Orson Welles. The rest of the supporting cast is fairly decent as well.

The movie is fairly entertaining, but it felt like it was more interested in certain moments, rather than telling a truly effective story. We have a great scene of Wood filming Plan 9 From Outer Space, we have him in a swamp with a fake octopus, we have him being chased out of a movie theater- there's all these moments that work in and of themselves, but Burton doesn't quite string them all together in a satisfying way. It's not bad, but it's not as effective as it could have been. It was interesting to film this in black and white. I thought it was a good choice.

Ed Wood is a good movie- it's a crazy film about a really odd human being. It does feature a great performance by Martin Landau, and in addition to his Academy Award, the film also won Best Makeup. This isn't a bad movie at all. And yet, it's an odd movie- some of Burton's choices might have made the film feel different, but they limited the emotional impact of the film. We could laugh at Ed Wood or understand him. We get a film that allows us to poke fun at him, but we never go deep. That's one of the big shames here, and the major reason why this wasn't a better movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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