Overly Brutal

Rating: 4/10 (25 July 2005)

Sleepy Hollow is the beginning of Tim Burton's downfall. As others have said the movie is way way too brutal. How many times do we have to see people's heads get chopped off? It would have been much improved with less head rolling and a little more suspense. The acting is a times non-existent instead of being terrified the townspeople (Ricci and the boy in the graveyard scene react as if they've just seen a squirrel crossing a field.) Depp is funny but lightweight and the movie is very very set bound and looks and feels artificial which may have been the point but it would have been far creepier if shot on actual fog bound locations. Instead of being scary the gore just becomes tedious and in the end I found myself fast forwarding to the resolution. Burton followed this with Mars Attacks also terrible and Planet of the Apes which is perhaps the worst remake of all time. He's rebounded somewhat with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but still has a long way to go to win back the respect I had for him early in his career Bettle Juice, Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood.