Visually Appealing Burton Style

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2009)

Seven out of ten stars
Admittedly, I am an admirer of Tim Burton's darkest work, and "Sleepy Hollow" definitely falls into this dark category. "Sleepy Hollow" is a plethora of visually appealing Gothic effects. The costuming, make-up, set design, traditional special effects, and CGI effects all add up to a very satisfying spectacle of Burton Gothic styling. "Sleepy Hollow" was a visual candy store indeed.
For those of you that aren't interested in Burton's Gothic styling, you simply are not going to appreciate this Burton film. Burton essentially carries this picture on visual effects, which is enough for me to find this film to be an enjoyable, if not a light weight horror film. I don't think anyone can completely write off a film that pairs Coppola and Burton on the production end.
There were many many talented people involved in the making of this film on both the production and performance ends. Watching Christopher Lee and Christopher Walken is worth the price of admittance alone. Eflman's score is chilling, a soundtrack I wouldn't be ashamed to add to my own collection. The extensive list of talented professionals should alone signal to us that this picture is at the very least a quality mainstream Hollywood production. I personally can't ask anymore from Hollywood than a film such as this.
There are however, definite shortcomings that preventing me from awarding "Sleepy Hollow" ten stars. The accents the actors used were uneven at times, some the characters even appeared to lose their accents in several cases. I just felt like the accents could have been handled better. Without taking the time to name specific actors, some of them simply suffered from marble mouth syndrome. I mean I couldn't understand what the heck was being said by specific actors. It was annoying, it's called annunciation people.
The plot was conceptually strong at it's core, but just got muddled down in way too many unnecessary details, doing nothing to enhance the overall story. It's not that the plot was overly complicated, it was just riddled with ridiculous turns that forced Burton to have a few too many, "Plot Explanation Scenes". A truly intelligent film allows the audience to completely piece things together on their own; I don't think that would be possible here. The weakest part of the plot hinges desperately upon a woman exacting revenge upon her landlord for evicting her family many years ago. Whatever....
The flashbacks involving Crane's childhood were quite pointless and some of the attempts at humor, I thought were miserable. The strongest aspect of this production is it's visual style and power, Walken and Lee are a joy to watch, and you can really never go completely wrong with Burton and Coppola working together. This would be a wonderful film to view as part of your yearly Halloween celebration, but I wouldn't take it too seriously.