Visually stunning

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2007)

Lush, gorgeous, glitteringly dark--a gloomy, misty landscape of twisted, black trees, and looming shadows--Sleepy Hollow is visually breathtaking. Budding directors, cinematographers, and set directors should be required to watch this film as a textbook study into how one establishes atmosphere. Elfman's score is a jewel as well, the perfect complement to all this visual mastery. At once sumptuous and ominous, brooding on horrors seen and horrors to come, it sets off the misty, haunted look of the thing perfectly.
Beyond this, cast and casting are inspired--a wonderful gallery of oddly matched talents, note-perfect in their various roles. Depp is a strangely lovely Ichabod Crane, faithful, all the same, in spirit to the original: quirky, overwrought, his constant efforts to exude competence and confidence are continually undermined by the brutal reality that he is never more than a few short steps from becoming entirely unhinged by the wanton irrationality that abounds in this haunted rural corner of early America. This is Crane as a would-be man of science; uncomfortably finding himself on the trail of a headless ghost, he's determined nonetheless to rise to the challenge and see that justice is done. In his portrayal, Depp achieves a stammering, flustered delivery and gawky physicality that evoke the character perfectly. Ricci, for her part, is cast smartly half against type: playing a coolly beautiful, wide-eyed fairy tale princess, she brings a note of self-assurance and self-possession to the part that makes it as memorable as any of her more overtly dark roles: she's a heroine to complement Depp's Ichabod, composed where he's addled and alarmed, in her element where he's out of his depth. And yes, they do look awfully good together. Add to these principals a wonderfully mixed and matched stable of fine, nuanced English character actors, one icon of the horror genre and a few familiar old faces and favourites of Burton: Richardson, Lee, McDiarmid, Walken, Gambon, Jones, and there's some serious wattage on the screen, here, all generally put to very good use. There are some nice flashes of dark comedy, too, as you'd only expect from Burton. All of which makes the film, all in all, a fine mix of beautiful things.
That's what's great about Sleepy Hollow; see it, if for nothing else, for all that mist and shadow--on the big screen or in the gorgeous HD DVD version, if you possibly can, for Burton works this canvas beautifully, and you do want to see it in all the detail you can. And see it for Depp and Ricci, Lee (in a cameo, technically, but it's a key one, and he makes every second count), and Richardson.
There are, however, also more than a few weaker spots, here. Burton billed Sleepy Hollow as an homage to the classic Hammer horror films, and it does evoke that very feel, frequently--both for better and for worse. Yes, there's mist and mystery, a suggestion of supernatural dread lurking in every long shadow, and some reasonably affecting horror--but there's also a fairly liberal dash of fake blood (occasionally used for a nice comic effect, but then overused), and a little more latex gore than I've a taste for, personally. The failing is a common one in horror: the old 'too much on the screen/not enough left to the frightened imagination' problem. Having established that beautifully spooky, haunted atmosphere, Burton seems to think he can lean harder on it than he can, goes all kinetic and bloody, in the end, and the whole winds up a good notch or two more overt than it probably should have been, reveling just a little too much in the gore, and inevitably failing, therefore, to use it as powerfully as it might have to terrify. The horseman of the title itself, especially, though brilliantly menacing, initially, loses much of that menace as it becomes too familiar a presence on the screen, and this only gets worse and worse as the film proceeds. I found myself almost wishing Burton had had slightly less effective effects at his command: it might have helped, a little, if he'd been forced by technical limitations to keep his beloved whirling headless horseman o' death in the shadows a little more, let us be a little more afraid of what we can't see.
All that said: yes, it's quite worth the time. Absolutely do see it. Against those weaknesses, the sheer dark beauty of the visuals and the general brilliance of the cast make it well worthwhile.