ED WOOD
A film review by Jeff Pidgeon
Copyright 1994 Jeff Pidgeon
Tim Burton's latest offering, ED WOOD, is an affectionate one-could-say tribute to a director many consider to be the worst of all time (my vote goes for Michael Cimino). ED WOOD has the usual Burton strengths and weaknesses: a thorough sense of time and place, more interesting characters than the plot can handle, and a storyline that seems to be mostly a daisy chain of spot gags.
To be fair, though, the film has more story structure than any other previous Burton effort--screenwriter Michael Lehmann figured out a good way to trick Burton into thinking he didn't have a three-act story while in actuality giving him what may be the closest thing he's had to one. The film focuses on the making of three Wood "classics," so no matter what else happens, the result of each production will give a resolution of sorts.
If ED WOOD had been a half-hour, or even an hour long, it would have been a quirky entertaining novelty. At two hours, though, the gags are repeating for the third time, and one begins to wonder if the film isn't spliced into a loop, and that you'll never get to leave. There's only so many times that seeing Johnny Depp in an angora sweater can provoke any sort of reaction before you start checking your watch.
Tha cast's performances are stronger than most Burton outings, but Martin Landau stands alone in giving his Lugosi portrait sufficient weight and depth to engage you beyond the gags. The relationship between Depp and Landau is the strongest thing in the film, and the film might have been better all around if this had been focused upon more. As it is, the film has to fall back on a "stick-to-your-artistic- vision-kid" message (from a pretty implausible source) that rings particularly hollow (especially from the director of BATMAN). ED WOOD is consistently entertaining, but wears out its welcome too soon ... people who aren't rabid Wood fans will probably come away wondering why Burton went to all the trouble. Not Recommended.
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