More from Burton's bag of tricks

Rating: 7/10 (24 September 2009)

'Sleepy Hollow' is right up Tim Burton's alley and he's made a visually beautiful and gripping film of it. I'm not sure why he decided to make Ichabod Crane such a wuss but Johnny Depp's interpretation of the character has charm and mild pathos which make for a rounded believable character and displays Crane's queasiness about blood and decapitated bodies without making him a city sissy.
The cinematography is the most beautiful in any of Burton's films, all sepia and silver-toned grays. I'm not sure how much (if any) of this was filmed in the Hudson Valley of NY but it certainly looks real enough in the outdoor scenes. The studio sets are obvious enough when Burton's signature gnarled, beast-like trees start popping up in the landscape, and as usual the sets are just as beautiful and fascinating as the spooky woods surrounding Sleepy Hollow.
Elfman's scores are always great enhancements to Burton's films and this one is one of his better and more hard-hitting compositions, but still with the charm of boy sopranos and eerie violins at the top of their range.
The cast is stellar, as in full of stars, English mostly, who will be familiar to film buffs who watch a lot of BBC and Masterpiece Theatre as well as feature films from the U.K. They are all so good that none stand out above the others. Unfortunately Christina Ricci, as the romantic heroine, is not up to the same level simply because she's too modern in her delivery. She looks great but she delivers many of her lines in a quick and robotic manner that jars after so much eloquence from her colleagues, occasionally speaking so fast that she slurs her words together and is almost unintelligible if your not listening closely. But she is not exactly a detraction, simply a cut below the others.
I'm still waiting for Burton's perfect nightmare legend to hit the screen. The upcoming 'Alice in Wonderland' looks like it is animation so I don't think it will be the ONE. Sometimes I think Burton might do well to do a couple of remakes, like the Invisible Man or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or maybe even Dracula... ALL with Johnny Depp!
This is a very good movie but not for young children. The blood and chopped heads are typically Burton-style and not sickening but the abundance of both do have a cumulative effect, especially as its a veritable blood bath at the end.
Not one of his greats, those kudos go to 'Ed Wood', 'Edward Scissorhands' and 'Big Fish', but it is one of his better films, and the visual aspects of it are splendid.