Wood would have been proud of himself had he lived to see this.

Rating: 10/10 (5 August 2005)

If Ed Wood had lived today, his opinion of this movie would probably have been "This is the one they're gonna remember me for". This just goes to show you that he had absolute blind faith in himself and thought that he was the best director ever. Everybody by now knows that he couldn't have been more wrong but it isn't because he is full of himself but because he so desperately tries to fulfill his dreams that he can't see the cardboard sets he uses. He looks at them like they were paved with gold.
Tim Burton has the look of the Z-movie environment exactly right and this is definitely the most entertaining biography ever made. When compared to the rather lifeless "Chaplin" which is supposed to be about a man that was a great deal more respected than Wood, I can only say that all through "Chaplin" I kept thinking about how I could get out.
The cast is excellent right down to some of the bit players. The father of Ron Howard, Rance, has a hilarious cameo as one of Wood's backers who wants a movie to end with a big explosion. As far as Johnny Depp is concerned, the only way he could have been better was to find the trick to melt into another man's body because it is absolutely a performance of a lifetime.