Well, I could just say “O_O” and be done with it for this mini-review, but that wouldn’t do the film justice. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but I did hear lots of great reviews on this, so I went in there knowing it would probably be okay. But I was wrong… it was GREAT.

So let’s go just a little bit more in detail and talk about one of the weirdest people in the world of cinema!

Read on! (Yeah, I know this movie is 15 years old, but I just saw it for the first time and I thought I should share my thoughts with everyone)

Who was Ed Wood and why should I care?
Ah, Edward D Wood Jr. He was kinda like the Uwe Boll of his time, except less of a douchebag, and funnier… And his movies were so bad they were funny, while Uwe Boll… just sucks.
His most renown film is “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, which is considered one the worst films ever. He was a director/writer/producer/actor that never shot retakes, wrote completely weird scripts that made no sense and had total disregard to the negative criticism and didn’t care if there were errors in his movies, like actors making the sets wobble by hitting them, or bad special effects(Octopus fight!)… stuff like that. He was also well known for having famous Dracula actor Bela Lugosi in his movies. His career eventually(well, not very long after Plan 9 pretty much) degenerated into making lame softcore porn-horror films, like Orgy of the Dead.

Needless to say, he was a weirdo, and no good at his job at all, but at the same time he had a love for what he did, and movies in general. And this is what this movie is all about. And I’m sure he was a big influence in the industry as well, still having a fanbase up to this day. There’s even talk of a remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space (though it just looks like a random zombie flick according to the trailer)…. OH by the way he was a transvestite.

“I thought you were a fag.”
“No, I’m just a transvestite!”

What about the movie?
The movie is directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp. We’re off to a good start. Also, the movie was filmed fully in black and white.

The movie details part of the life of Ed Wood. It shows how he met Bela Lugosi (marvelously played by Martin Landau), how his first movie, “Glen or Glenda”, came into being, the various complications of “Bride of the Monster” (previously named “Bride of the Atom” but changed to have more appeal), the death of Bela Lugosi, and finally the big thing: The production of “Plan 9 from Outer Space”.

The events are told partly factually, though some things are changed, some things are exaggerated, and some things a. The characters are marvelous. Not only do they look exactly like their real world counterparts Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, Lisa Marie as Vampira and Jeffrey Jones as Criswell are particularly convincing. Johnny Depp as Ed Wood looks a bit different from pictures I’ve seen, though he looks exactly the same when he wears women’s clothing. And all of them act more or less accordingly to their real life counterparts. The casting was fantastic to say the least, and there isn’t one character that really feels out of place.
Some events were skipped, some of his productions weren’t shown in the movie, like Jail Bait (before Bride of the Monster). Some other minor elements were changed, like the scene where the final filming of Lugosi is done. But I think the movie goes through most of the important parts of his career.

It was a bit unreal to hear Bela Lugosi swearing all the time, and I don’t know if he was like that when he was alive, but I think it adds realism to the character. We see the end of his life and his last filmed moments, his addiction to morphine and his detox period. He was definitely well portrayed and Martin Landau’s performance couldn’t have been better.

But the one who steals the show is definitely Johnny Depp as Ed Wood. Every time he’s on the screen, it’s marvelous. The way he moves, the expressions on his face at all times, how he looks in women’s clothing, and his overall acting…. it was perfect. When he said something you really believed it, and HE really believed it as well. The way he said “Cut! This was perfect” no matter how bad the scene he was filming was awesome. I’ll say that this is easily my favorite Johnny Depp performance.

I haven’t actually seen any of Ed Wood’s movies, but I saw multiple scenes of most of the more popular ones, and most of the scenes I saw before were shown here, but remade with the new actors, and all of them were perfectly redone. They couldn’t have honored Ed Wood’s pictures any better than they did here.

Overall
This movie is incredible. The acting, the portrayal of everyone in Ed Wood’s life up to Plan 9, the actors looking almost exactly like their real-life counterparts, the story, the comedy, the drama, the very few romantic moments… Everything was perfect. And there’s never a dull moment. I’m having trouble finding anything really bad about the movie. Some might complain that some events were changed or completely omitted, but I find that the parts that were removed weren’t incredibly important either. Oh, and the ending was a bit lame. There was no closure really. They showed a bit of the Plan 9 world premiere, and then showed everyone going out of the theater, and then… just showed every character, with a small text saying what happened to them later on in their lives. I was just expecting more of an ending.

For anyone interested in film-making, this is a must watch. Otherwise, I think it’s still worth checking out.

Ed Wood: He might have been the worst director of all time, but he was passionate about his work, and this is what this movie really wanted to show: That he was, despite his flaws, a fascinating person.

jobocan Movie, Random, retro, Review