It's the difference that makes the film.

Rating: Null/10 (21 November 1999)

Most film adaptations are rarely true to the original material. Sleepy Hollow is not the Legend of Sleepy Hollow from Kickerbocker's Sketchbook, by Washington Irving, but it is an interesting personal adaptation by a very creative and original director, Tim Burton, and it is the differences between the film and the original story that make Sleepy Hollow, the film, interesting. I thought it was interesting that the film takes place on the eve of another millennium, 1799. The 1800's were an era of great growth in the country, and rapid change in science, economics, and industry. It's almost as if the horseman belongs to a previous age (an age of superstitions and religious persecution), and Crane is a bridge to a new age (of science and rationality). Few people ever consider the fact that science and mathematics actually have roots in magic and superstition (see Anthony Aveni, Beyond the Crystal Ball). Hollow's Crane is trying to be rational, but the source of his enthusiasm for the scientific method has its roots in his memory of the blind persecution of his mother and her white magic by intolerant religious dogmatism. There are other films that deal with the assumed conflict between science and rational thought, and mystical/magical experience. The Magician by Ingmar Bergman, for one. I am curious where Tim Burton is on the issue.
A few other comments. I don't think that it is really an inconsistency that the horseman's remains are in one place, while the apparition has substance. Old time spirit mediums use to insist that materializations were made of "ectoplasm," and in Tibetan mysticism, bodiless spiritual forces can materialize as physical under certain conditions. In any case, the supernatural is irrational by nature. I actually enjoyed the film's leisurely pace. Sometime I think we are becoming too conditioned to rapid-fire action sequences by movies and 60 second commercials. Lots of people panned Christina Ricci, but I thought she did a great job in the role, and looked good in the part too. Depp as Crane seemed a touch over the top, but then, I think the role Burton created called for a certain about of over the top reacting, and Depp, an excellent actor, didn't push things too much to the extreme. Likewise, the other special effects didn't take over the film but worked with it.