A Missed Opportunity

Rating: 4/10 (26 October 2011)

I'm glad to see there are at least a few kindred spirits out there who were also disappointed by this movie, but far fewer than anticipated. After watching I honestly expected to come to the IMDb page and see a rather low rating and a page full of reviews wondering just what in the sam hill Burton was thinking.
To be fair, I grew up loving The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, especially the impeccable Rabbit Ears version narrated by Glenn Close. Still, while I certainly knew this was going to take liberties with the story, I had no idea just how many, and how drastic they'd be. And please don't tell me I should have expected this because Burton's been doing it for years. I've seen plenty of Burton movies before, not all of them are dark slightly humorous Gothic macabre slashers. For every Sweeney Todd (which obviously is similar to this, but so is it's source material), there's a Big Fish.
I knew the Horseman was actually going to be a killer, that wasn't a surprise. But the first shock came when we go to New York City. Ichabod Crane is a Renaissance inspired constable? Are you kidding me? The guy's supposed to be a timid bean-pole of a traveling school teacher. Whatever, roll with the punches I told myself.
Cut to Sleepy Hollow. Hmm, I notice there isn't any sunlight for the third scene in a row, I have a feeling it's going to be like this for the rest of the movie (suspicion later confirmed). Are we really going to pretend it's always cloudy just to set the mood? I hate it when people use techniques like that; if you can't create an oppressive gloomy atmosphere without washing the color and light out of everything don't bother. For a particular scene? Sure, but I know you can do it without easy tricks like that Burton. And of course in the very last happy 15 second scene in NYC the sun is shining bright; "how symbolic!" I cried with the utmost sarcasm.
Next we were introduced to the Horseman himself via flashback. I'll not beat around the bush, I hated this depiction of the horseman. A superhuman Christopher Walken with the hair of a 17 year old snowboarder and freaking fangs? He looked like a strung out Troll Doll going through withdrawal. I won't deny I chuckled, Walken always amuses me and I figured this would be the only time we saw him since there is no actual ghost. I assumed Burton was just having a little fun with a one-off exaggerated flashback. I was mistaken.
When it turned into murder mystery mode, I did begin to enjoy it again for a time. Once it became clear there were actually supernatural forces at work though, that the killer wasn't one of the townsfolk (not directly anyway), I'd just about had enough. The entire original story is about how people get freaked about by old wives tales when they're combined with spooky atmospheres, even though it's all fake, but now not only is the horseman actually killing people, he's actually a ghost too? As Cris Carter would say, "C'mon man!" None of this is to mention the dreadfully unnecessary and rather hokey special effects. In addition to all of the mind numbingly gratuitous beheadings (and seriously what was the point? We get it, you're not afraid to show some gore. It gets boring after the seventh time) there's also the completely random scene with a witch wigging out while acting as a medium. Did Sam Raimi stop by the set for a day? And while we're on the witches, whose bright idea was it to make Katrina an amateur sorcerer? So random. And the reason for the minister betraying his friend's trust is that he sacrifices his beliefs for lust with a witch? Where did you buy your book of clichés Tim?
Oh well, I've certainly seen worse movies, but what a let down. I was very excited to finally see this, an esteemed director adapting one of my favorite childhood stories in a big screen treatment. He turned it from a delightful spooky little yarn about post-colonial America into a ridiculous over the top fantasy film about a serial killer chock full of cheesy effects.