pretty but useless

Rating: 3/10 (20 May 2000)

this film had a lot of potential - it's a great story and has the potential to be very creepy. but of course tim burton doesn't really do creepy films, he does wacky cartoonish films. and i usually like tim burton's stuff. but i thought this film was really weak. the best thing about the film (and it is actually worth seeing just for this) was the art direction - the film has an amazing intangible quality to it. the script was not good. it was boring in parts and confusing in other parts, and there was no building of characters. i never really cared that people were having their heads lopped off by a headless being. i thought johnny depp had a good thing going with his approach to the character, but given that the script was weak he couldn't go too far with it - and i was very irritated by the attempts at a slight accent on his and christina ricci's parts.
anyway, it is sadly not a great film and not worth seeing unless you are interested in the art direction.