Sarcastic, inteligent and moving view on Ed Wood

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2002)

MY RATING- 8.0
To begin, it's a well-aclaimed mov here in Portugal and we have some Ed Wood moviegoers (thank god there isn't a lot!)
It's a damn well made mov, created when Burton had finished his personal Batman Returns, this one on the life of Edward Wood Junior, the worst director ever. Well I never watched a mov from Ed, and to be honnest, I don't intend to spend my money doing so. This mov spare us the torture of it, and Burton uses again his strange sense of humour to tell the story of a guy who was convinced that his movs were excellent. In a way, the message is given by Vincent D'Onofrio in a delicious cameo as Orson Welles- we must go through with things, even if they're bad as Ed's movs. As Ed, Johny Depp goes quite well, as well as Sarah Jessica Parker as the girlfriend who leaves him, Bill Murray (ultrafunny!), Patricia Arquette (very sweet), Lisa Marie Juliet Landau and Jeffrey Jones as the omnipresent Criswell. But the real surprise is Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, the horror star from 30's Dracula. Under his heavy makeup, we really forget we're seeing an actor, he truly looks like Bela! What a performance! Impossible not to sympathise with him, he even won the Oscar (which is quite rare in a Tim Burton mov).
Overall, this is a quite entertaining doc mov, and a interesting change on the director's career, that will please fans and nonfans.