No way!

Rating: 5/10 (15 November 2004)

Compared to the rating on IMDb, this movie was a big disappointment. How it can rank in the top-250 completely eludes me. I appreciate many of Tim Burton's other works, but this one is going nowhere for the most part. First and foremost, it is too long for the little bit of story it has to tell. Most of the problems are with incoherencies of the script and bad timing of those scenes intended to be funny. The acting is also less than stellar (with one noteworthy exception). Depp is portraying Wood as a retarded moron all the way through the movie and Patricia Arquette's acting is more wooden than Pinocchio's would ever be. Why would anyone care for the fate of such characters? Martin Landau, of course, shines and saves the movie single-handedly. His performance of Bela Lugosi is well worth the Academy Award it earned him.