Sumptuous visuals gloss over incompetent storytelling

Rating: Null/10 (10 January 2000)

The most appalling thing about Sleepy Hollow is how good it could have been. You have a gifted director, a wonderful cast, and a reasonably intriguing premise. And yet what has actually been committed to the screen is trite, unimaginative, and ultimately quite boring.
What immediately strikes one about the film is the amazingly hackneyed and uninteresting dialogue, as Andrew Kevin Walker's script fails to convey any great amount of entertainment. An opening snatch of speech ("What have you found, Ichabod?", "A man, lately") promises a film steeped in a wonderful sense of the late eighteenth century period, but time and again we are left with bland, standardised conversations, and a clutch of direly out of place lines ("Watch your head.").
Moreover, the film offers little to no surprises in terms of storyline. In the first scene in which Depp ecounters the residents of Sleepy Hollow, it isn't the work of two seconds to deduce what role each character will play, many of which are entirely unnecessary roles ANYWAY, such as Caspar Van Dien's quite useless and missable turn as Ricci's alternate love interest. The whole thing smacks of Hollywood.
Another tragedy is the amazingly generic score composed by Elfman, who's normally touching and lingering melodies seem to be lost in a mire of average cinematic orchestration.
The acting is adequate, save for Depp who turns in his usually marvellous performance as an idiosyncratic outsider. However, the accents are utterly laughable, as a cast of Brits and Americans can't seem to decide which side of the Atlantic they reside upon.
On the visual side of things, there is much to be commended. The town itself is a wonder, and the sense of colour and tone is approached with an exacting and well realised skill. The costumes are all quite visually appealling (although there is something of an over-reliance upon heaving bosoms).
The first occasion upon which we encounter the Horseman following Crane's arrival in the town is well handled, and a feeling of action and motion is very well controlled. However, this gives way to a series of repetitious and dull encounters which do nothing but bore.
A lack of characterisation, some pointlessly gimmicky effects which muddy Burton's excellent visuals and some final revelations which aren't particularly revelatory also contribute to this, what should have been Burton's finest hour. This is a bad film, largely due to the incompetence of Walker. Very disappointing.