Lopping Heads

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 1999)

When an Oscar-winning actor (Martin Landau) can't make it past the first minute of a film, there is something wrong. Indeed, Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" is a special effects vehicle looking for a movie. The Washington Irving story depended upon imagination to give it a creepy, frightful rendition. This film spoils everything by showing lopping heads, headless horseman flying off the bark of an old tree, and pursued victims who meet their vividly bloody demise. Like the striptease artist, Burton leaves us with little to imagine. "Sleepy Hollow" becomes boring, predictable, and not very scary. Its main characters mirror the unnecessarily complicated plot by becoming obtuse and dull. Johnny Depp, like his earlier film, "Dead Man", comes across as flat and uninspiring as Ichabod Crane. Christina Ricci is miscast as the young virgin that she is not. Even Miranda Richardson's role is terribly undeveloped until the end when she is thrown at us both as a way to neatly end the film and also to explain to us how all the missing pieces fit. "Sleepy Hollow" is a sad example of how modern day technology can spoil an earlier work of horror. When there is little to imagine, you can't help but ask when the movie will end.