Innovative, but has some weaknesses
The sim side of things is a fun game. You have to manage your stars (who can get stressed and bored and do things you don't want them to), hire help in the form of extras and crew, and actually produce scripts of various sorts to film on sets you make. In the background, you have to respond to the public needs and wants as far as movie genres go and research new filming technology to stay ahead of your competition. You can see how well your movies, stars, and actual studio are doing at any time by checking your ratings. In addition, there is an awards show every 5 years, and winning awards actually gives you real bonuses for game play.
In order to be successful, you have to juggle your stars' needs with a shooting schedule, keep films in the works at all times, keep your sets and buildings maintained... there's a lot to do, but it never gets bogged down. You don't have to micromanage to the point of exhaustion, but you do have to keep up with things. Neglect the lot, and you will lose status.
As fun as that is, the real interesting twist comes in making your own movies. Either as a script you make for filming in the management game, or while playing in sandbox mode, you can construct your own scripts and film them, using actors and scenes, costumes and sets, all to make your masterpieces. This is where the unique aspect of the game shows. The editing tools for this are strong and robust. There is a learning curve here, but it's not too rough on the experienced gamer, and there are excellent tutorials provided to help you with it. Once you have filmed your epic, you can export it to a playable file for posting, and even upload it to Lionhead's community site.
On the bad side, the movie making has a limited number of possible scenes, so filming can get repetitive. There are scenes that would seem to be very logical that are somehow missing, and others that don't look to have much use. The manipulation of props in the scenes is very limited, you can usually only select from a very small list for most scenes. Action scenes in particular are limited, in my opinion.
This is a good game, and can be a lot of fun. the graphics are good, and the sound is excellent. It runs smoothly on a strictly mid level machine. The script writing feature is fun and certainly unique, but has some big weaknesses that could stand to be fixed. As long as you are flexible and willing to make compromises on your movie making ideals, you should have a good time of it.