A head-chopping good time

Rating: 10/10 (7 December 1999)

If a viewer goes into this movie looking for a good scare, he might be disappointed. Because the cartoony head-chopping isn't exactly scary. But if you go into it just expecting to have fun, you won't be disappointed at all. Aside from just being fun, Tim Burton makes this the coolest looking movie of the year by far. He's come up with some great looking landscapes. Johnny Depp is at his best. And the headless horseman is the best bad guy of the year, forget Darth Maul. You wouldn't expect there to be much investigating for Depp's Ichabod Crane to do. I mean, it's obvious some headless dude is chopping people's heads off, but the story manages to be quite an entertaining "Who done it?" I'd give something away if I elaborated, so I'll leave it at that. Burton obviously has fond feelings toward the old Disney cartoon "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," because he throws in all kinds of little nods to the classic cartoon. He even uses frog noises that sound like "Ichabod." If you like the old cartoon at all - and who doesn't ? - you need to see this movie.