SLEEPY HOLLOW ** (out of four) -a review by Bill Chambers (bill@filmfreakcentral.net)
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starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving directed by Tim Burton
Googly eyes that spring forth from a ghoulish figure. A burning windmill. Ornate choir music. Jeffrey Jones. Sleepy Hollow is Tim Burton's Greatest Hits. The trouble with most compilation albums is that they're superficial, a bunch of songs with only one context: retrospection. If this latest gloomfest from Burton doesn't make you yearn for the days when you were witnessing his directorial flourishes for the first time, we saw different films. While the setting is hollow, the storytelling is shallow.
Washington Irving's classic tale has been retooled to the sensibilities of Burton and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (of Se7en). Schoolteacher Ichabod Crane (Depp) is now a New York City police constable sent upstate with his wild detecting contraptions (he's a pioneer of forensics) to investigate a series of decapitations in the community of Sleepy Hollow. The town's magistrates have pegged The Headless Horseman, a vengeful ghost, as the killer, but Crane, whose spell-dabbling mother (Lisa Marie) was tortured to death by puritans, prefers to put his faith in logic over the superrnatural.
With "Murder She Wrote" or "Scooby Doo Mysteries" instead of Irving's text as its template, the remainder of the plot feels like filler. Crane flirts with Katrina (Ricci, in a yellow wig-Burton apparently shares a blonde hair fetish with Hitchcock), the winsome daughter of landlord Baltus Van Tassel (Gambon). Katrina's hand has already been promised to Brom Van Brunt (Casper Van Dien in a role that thankfully doesn't tax his limited range), which, according to the principles of gothic literature, means one third of the triangle will have to be dispatched. Then there's the orphan (Marc Pickering) who tags along with Crane as a sort of junior Watson, squashing spiders for his wimpy mentor and shielding him from harm.
Burton and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have concocted some psychotically pretty images that visually distinguish this interpretation of ...Sleepy Hollow from all the others, especially in scenes featuring Christopher Walken, who leaves a lasting impression as the Horseman. (Don't worry, I haven't ruined anything.) The actor's unearthly physical presence has been noted in the past, but here, with snarls for dialogue and a mouthful of pointy teeth, he achieves heretofore-unexplored levels of camp. His performance lacks the tragic elements of the most memorable movie monsters, but the very sight of him defibrilates a movie mired in Hammer cliches and (with one exception, involving a duel) derivative action sequences.
Yes, yes, I know, those unmotivated bolts of lightning, shots of people darting awake from a nightmare in a cold sweat, melodramatic line readings, and fog-drenched, minimalist sets are Burton's way of paying tribute to the horror pictures he loved as a youth (Hammer mainstay Christopher Lee even has a cameo), but the effect is muffled by a self-consciously B-grade and critically underdeveloped script, not to mention a budget that could've funded fifty or sixty Vincent Price flicks. Ichabod and Katrina's cursory romance has been spared the imagination that went into the special effects (which are spectacular), and the resolution, which follows a carriage race climax that falls short of thrilling (not enough complications), is a real head-scratcher. (The filmmakers skip a necessary step in the plotting.)
I referred to some of Burton's other work in the opening paragraph-in order: Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice; Frankenweenie (a short); his entire catalogue; and Beetlejuice and Ed Wood. Burton's Sleepy Hollow is stitched together from spare parts like some cinematic Frankenstein, and it's unwieldy. This is the third time he and Depp have collaborated on a project (after Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands), annihilating that old adage about charm-their previous unions were much more fruitful. Depp really disappoints; he emasculates Ichabod, but the character's cowardice lacks shading. The problem is not that we wind up rooting for the Headless Horseman, it's that we never root for Crane.
Burton's career is on a downswing-his last effort, Mars Attacks, was another unsuccessful hommage. His work of late is most signifcantly characterized by its thematic emptiness-if only, in fishing through his old bag of tricks, he had pulled up the emotional grandeur of Edward Scissorhands or Ed Wood, films that spoke volumes about alienation and passion. It is Burton who loses his head in the dark, dull Sleepy Hollow. Or, at least, his knack.
-November, 1999
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