A Wonderful Re-Telling of Irving's Classic Story

Rating: Null/10 (22 November 1999)

Sleepy Hollow is a terrific film, depicting a daring re-telling of Washington Irving's legendary short story. This time, Johnny Depp portrays Ichabod Crane, not a schoolteacher, but a New York City constable sent into the valley of the Hudson River to investigate the grisly murders by decapitation in the Dutch village of Sleepy Hollow. We, as Crane does, these crimes have been committed by the Headless Hessian, or Horseman, a phantasm who rides a huge black horse and beheads his victims with a large mercenary broadsword and single-edged axe.
Depp gives his finest performance to date, and meshes so completely well into the fantastic, yet dark, universe of director Tim Burton's filmmaking. He has made Crane an amalgam of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes and many other famous screen detectives, with dashes of New Yankee sensibility and British squeamishness. Christian Ricci heads a spectacular supporting cast that includes the immortal Christopher Lee, Miranda Richardson, Ian McDiarmid, and Michael Gough, lately the big screen's Batman's aide de camp, Alfred. Christopher Walken portrays the silent, but deadly, Hessian, still bearing his fanged cranium, while stuntman and martial artist, late as The Phantom Menace's Darth Maul, Ray Park, is physically imposing and blindingly frightening as the ghostly real Horseman, post death.
Tim Burton displays his unique and vividly imaginative directorial return with Sleepy Hollow, showing how well he can put together a big budget film and make it work triumphantly. Let's hope he continues to make movies in this same energetic way for years to come.
Highly recommended!