Good movie with a great score

Rating: 6/10 (12 November 1999)

Saw Sleepy Hollow at a press screening last night at Paramount. In light of the trailer (which I thought was ho-hum), my impression that Burton films generally are overacted and border on cartoonish or comic book-ish, and (especially) the cheesy "heads will roll" tagline, I was expecting a pretty mediocre show. In the end, though, I thought it was good. There is a little bit of silliness (e.g., head spinning around after being cut off) and one or two too-cartoonish effects (to mention would be to spoil), but overall I think the movie stays away from such things -- which for me is a good thing. Generally, I think it was well acted too. My rave for this movie, though, is the Danny Elfman score, which is awesome. The sound effects were also very good and, as always, Burton does an incredible job of providing a dark and dreary backdrop to a story. I'm not too sure about some of the character development (or lack thereof), particularly with regard to the characters played by Christina Ricci and Miranda Richardson, but in the end I didn't really mind.