One instance where the effects actually make the movie

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 1999)

This is a gorgeous film, such that it hardly matters that the story is perhaps a bit faulty.
Story, as I said, scarcely matters. Whatever story there is is enough to hold the movie together and maintain minimal interest. Sleepy Hollow is a very visual film. The costumes were great, the sets of New York and Sleepy Hollow were amazingly authentic and the effects so awesome, that I scarcely paid attention to the story or even to the notion there was supposed to be one; I was too busy marveling at the spectacle of the Headless Horseman and other remarkable effects. This is one film where the effects actually make the movie (Jurassic Park was another such film as was The Lost World - marginally). There was also a surreal, quirky feeling about the film that I rather enjoyed. There's even a sequence that is reminiscent of the Disney cartoon.
This film is also about legend, i.e. elevating and expanding the status of the legend of the Headless Horseman to the status of the (hackneyed) vampire and werewolf and doing a damn good job of it.