The Best Movie You've Never Seen

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2005)

Ed Wood (1924-1978) is generally regarded as the single worst film maker to emerge from Hollywood. This is not really true, for there were and are aplenty worse. But one thing has always set Wood above the pack, and that was his own unshakable faith in his talent. Unfortunately, the faith was misplaced and the talent was nonexistent--and although this Tim Burton film takes a slew of liberties with the facts of Wood's life and career, it does a remarkable job of capturing them as Wood likely saw them through the filter of his own outrageous ego. The film has two tremendous assets: the performers and its visual style. Johnny Depp leads the cast in the title role, and it is a virtuoso performance, for he entices us to like a man whose self-blindness would normally lead an audience to reject him out of hand; the performance is incredibly witty, wildly over the top, and yet it contains just enough pathos to allow us to relate to Wood on a human level. But the real stunner in the cast is Martin Landau, who picked up a Best Supporting Academy Award for his performance as Bela Lugosi, a legendary actor who was very much a forgotten star (not to mention morphine addict) by the time Wood befriended him in the early 1950s.
As with Wood himself, the film plays fast and loose with the facts of Lugosi's life, but it nonetheless captures something very essential about both Lugosi and the Hollywood that destroyed him, something very elemental that transcends the weird comedy of the piece. And Landau gives the performance of his career; you truly believe that this is Lugosi before you, a strange but appealing mixture of faltering humanity and arrogance desperate for an audience now lost to him. Other memorable performances include Bill Murray as the inept and very la-dee-dah actor Bunny Breckinridge; Jeffrey Jones as The Amazing Criswell, popular "psychic" and occasional Wood actor; Lisa Marie as television's "Vampira;" and Sarah Jessica Parker as Wood's fast wife and occasional actress Dolores Fuller. Indeed, there isn't a false note in the entire cast right down to the bit players and extras.
In terms of visual style, Tim Burton nails the very look of an Ed Wood film in glittering black and white--but working with a budget that Wood never dreamed of he merges it with a series of classic Hollywood idioms that lift the style out of Wood's unfortunately flat style and into the realm of high art. In both look and direction, I strongly feel that this is Burton's single finest film to date.
If the film has a flaw, it is that at times it recreates the flatness of an Ed Wood film a bit too precisely over too long a period--and the result can feel slightly dragged. And it is also a film that will register most clearly with those who have actually seen the films on which the movie focuses, so it may not appeal to the uninitiated. But for those who have the right eye, it is a remarkable film. Wickedly funny, unexpectedly touching, extremely memorable... and strongly recommended.
Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer