Good, but not typical Burton

Rating: 6/10 (28 November 1999)

I had an odd reaction to Sleepy Hollow: the acting, particularly by Johnny Depp, was excellent; the plot was much more clever than the original story; and Burton produces some eerie moments and the movie looks uniformly dreamy. But . . . for some reason it all left me unaffected. I would give the film a "thumbs up" and recommend it, but maybe I've come to expect more from the man who created Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christmas. Maybe the plot was a little TOO clever, too convoluted to quite buy into. Maybe the scenes of the Horseman doing his thing were a little too realistic and unimaginative. I admired the film's craft, but the whole thing failed to connect on an emotional level.