Bizarre, hilarious look at the worst director of all time

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2006)

An absolutely hilarious take on Hollywood of the '50s and the worst director of all-time. Though not for all tastes, this is a brilliant look at the life of the titular character, and his crazy antics, strange friends, and terrible movies. Filmed in black and white to recapture the look of films of that era, it successfully recreates the making of three of Ed Wood's bad movies, and the stories behind them, which seem almost too weird to be true. But truth is stranger than fiction, and the movie barely has to fictionalize anything to be interesting and entertaining. Truly bizarre and wildly unique, but still brilliant.
Johnny Depp is at his most insane here, combining a weird voice and deadly seriousness to make the character that much more effective. His performance is the centrepoint of the movie's bizarreness, and is quietly one of Depp's best. Martin Landau as the aged Bela Lugosi is nothing short of brilliant, whether it be a perfectly-recreated Hungarian accent spewing out profanity-laced barbs at Boris Karloff, or a depressing cry for help from his morphine addiction. Landau truly earned his Oscar for this one. Tim Burton directs what is perhaps his most visually stunted film, as he is restricted to California of the '50s, but he still manages to make it memorable and creative. The score (done not by Burton's usual collaborator, Danny Elfman, but Howard Shore) is fantastically strange - just like everything else in this film - and the supporting cast is as hilariously brilliant as the rest of the movie. A definite winner.