well-acted and inspirational, "Ed Wood" should be seen by anybody who dreams of becoming a filmmaker someday

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2009)

Edward D. Wood, Jr. was posthumously labeled the Worst Director of All Time. And when one looks upon his motion pictures, such as the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), even if you find yourself enjoying the movie as a guilty pleasure, you can easily see why. That's really the only reason why he's famous today and why this Tim Burton biopic was even made. Ed Wood cost more to make than all of the real man's movies put together, but it does do the story justice if it is slightly fictionalized.
For those not familiar with the story, Edward D. Wood, Jr. (played by Johnny Depp) was a young transvestite filmmaker during the 50s who was marked by his laughable production values and even more so, his ambition. He stopped at nothing to gain money to make his flicks and also during that time, befriended Dracula (1931) star Bela Lugosi, played here by Martin Landau in a hands-down brilliant performance that won him an Academy Award.
There was only one thing I admired about the real Ed Wood and that was his ambition. It was most certainly not his movies. Burton's biopic wonderfully reenacts Wood's passion for movie-making in an inspiring method. Film critic Gene Siskel called Ed Wood "one of the year's very best" and hoped that it would inspire ambitious filmmakers to "follow their dreams". And I could not agree more with him on that regard. I did not like Ed Wood as much as him, but I agree that it is one of the great movies about movie-making.
Appropriately, Ed Wood is shot in black-and-white; a brilliant decision since it captured the atmosphere of Wood's scenario and also because it's hard to imagine what Bela Lugosi would have looked like in color seeing as how he passed away before even appearing in one. It gives the movie a documentary-like style, which is also truly effective seeing as how it reflects upon the past. Performances all around are very good, especially Martin Landau. I was truly amazed at how well he mimicked the real Bela Lugosi's accent and mannerisms without becoming unintentionally comical. Johnny Depp was also very good as the optimistic Ed Wood. There are many other famous names in the film such as Bill Murray, but because they play characters exactly opposite of their mainstream course, we buy them for people, which is what any movie should do.
Bottom line, Ed Wood is a very good film by Tim Burton. There were some parts, mostly emotional scenes, that I felt were not carried long enough into the running time, but other than that, it is a pretty much flawless and solid Tim Burton movie effectively blending drama and comedy together along with inspiring a new generation of people to take the challenge and follow their dreams of becoming filmmakers.