Beautiful cinematography but ludicrous acting and storyline

Rating: Null/10 (13 November 2001)

I am a huge admirer of the calibre of the performances of Mr Johnny Depp, but was so badly let down by this poorly acted, ridiculous story that had all the workings of a cheap "Tales from the Dark Side" half-hour schedule-filler (and could certainly have been edited down to such a length), plus all the schlock naffness of a ghost-trainride in a backwater village in Sussex. The over-all hammy acting from most of the cast, coupled with a story too stupid to entertain an over-imaginative child, meant that yet again I had wasted 105 minutes of my precious life in front of the TV screen.
The cinematography was good, yes, but so it should be for $65m. This was a classic case of style over content, fuelled by special effects that would delight no one bar the nerd and the simpleminded.
As far as the story is concerned, if it deserves so flattering a description as the word "story", Depp plays Ichabod Crane in the role of the sceptical investigator from New York, sent to Sleepy Hollow to unravel the murder by decapitation of three of the multiply-inbred residents. The locals talk of a headless horseman who has committed the murders but Depp, who prefers to analyse fact from a scientific point of view and refuses to believe in the supernatural, thinks the locals are talking crap. Hmmm, where have we seen this before? Special Agent Dana Scully, sorry, Ichabod Crane, attempts to work out a logical explanation until he too sees the horseman. To say any more about the storyline, if you could call it that, would be to spoil any enjoyment that a reader of these comments may one day sustain, as there really isn't an awful lot more than this. Christina Ricci plays the love interest, and enough said about that the better. The year is 1799 and, as Crane remarks at the beginning of the movie, "The millennium is almost upon us". Whether he meant to say that the century is almost upon them, whether he was being very forward-thinking, whether late 18th century New York was already gripped by Millennium Fever, or whether in fact the script-writer was, I will leave that up to you. But it set the scene for a film that had clearly spent most of the budget on special effects (or rather, on the same special effect repeated throughout, namely the removal of heads) without paying too much attention to the dialogue or to how it was delivered.
The worst thing about this movie was that it has made me approach Depp's future films with caution, a feeling I would never have associated before within myself when preparing to watch one of his films. That this superb actor, whose great performances include Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, The Brave and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, could not shine from amongst acting as wooden as the trees in the forests around Sleepy Hollow, must say something more about the directing than the acting, as most of the remainder of the cast (Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson et al) are experienced actors and yet their performance is equally risible. However, director Tim Burton's other films are normally quite good.
Something went wrong. Somewhere. Sleepy Hollow, a film I'd rather forget quite quickly. If you like Johnny Depp, avoid this mindless inanity.
TRISTÁN HARVEY E. WHITE
I rate this film -3 (on the -4 to +4 scale)