visually stunning

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 1999)

I couldn't say that I am a Tim Burton fan (I have enjoyed the Batman films, but thought "Mars Attacks" was a waste of talent and celluloid), but have to hand it to him. No one can create mood and atmosphere as well as he. "Sleepy Hollow" is visually stunning, an amazing collection of gnarled trees, gloomy mist and frightening houses silhouetted against a surreal backdrop. It would be enormously entertaining to just look at the film without hearing a word! Unfortunately, I did hear it, and thought the story was often muddled and confusing. The acting ranged from good (Johnny Depp adds another memorable character to his repertoire) to bad (Christina Ricci). Miss Ricci is perhaps the best actress of her generation working today, but this film is a mis-step for her. Perhaps she is too modern to fit comfortably into the milieu of a 1700s village in upstate New York. She is not able to wrap her talents around the language of the period and she read her lines in a stilted, forced sort of way. However, she is a comely lass and always nice to see. The rest of the cast is uniformly good, and it is always good to have such veteran supporting players as Michael Gough and Michael Gambon on hand. They fit perfectly into the proceedings, although they don't seem to be able to make much sense of the plot either! Overall, I was enormously impressed by the look of the film (the cinematography and art direction are superb), but found the story hard to follow.