SLEEPY HOLLOW R
Starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, and a familiar "face" as the headless horseman
Eric says:******** 1/2 (8 1/2)
And to think that he and Richard Grieco started out on equal footing on "21 Jump Street" not so many years ago. Now Johnny Depp is one of the finest quirky leading men, a trait that obviously would make him a favorite of Tim Burton's. Burton's touch is obvious in this scary, campy, romantic, gory, GORGEOUS film.
Ichabod Crane (Depp) has been dispatched to upstate New York in 1799 to use his deductive reasoning skills to solve a string of decapitations - "Their heads are...gone?" - which are the result of an unhappy German. Along the way, he's bewitched by the lovely young Katrina Van Tassel, Christina Ricci looking like Kirsten Dunst.
Depp is fabulous in a role that requires leading-man debonaire, comic timing, subtle facial ticks, and an air of conceit. His Crane is in over his head, but refuses to admit it. Instead, he performs autopsies and engages in hand-to-hand combat with an undead Hessian ubersoldier. All the while, we know he could just as easily faint on the spot. The scene where he pushes his young assistant in front of him like a hostage is wonderful. Ricci gives a good performance as the enchantress wanna-be whose role in it all is left for us to figure out until the end. The horseman is played by three men - a well-known actor when he isn't head-impaired that reminds me of the Vlad the Impaler from Bram Stoker's Dracula, the stuntman who was Darth Maul while conducting horse-free combat, and an expert horse rider whilst upon his giant black steed.
The real stars are Tim Burton's directing and the set. Mist-filled woods and cobblestone buildings frame the actors at all times, just as alive Depp and Ricci. There was no scene cooler than when Crane and Magistrate Philipse see a muted thunderbolt through the soupy mist, sheep go running out of the frame, and you slowly hear the badump-badump of a horse getting closer, and closer... The score by the wonderful Danny Elfman is also great, very Batman-esque.
Burton directs all of this masterfully, giving equal creedence to the burgeoning love affair, the camp aspect of the scenario, scary scenes, suspense, and special effects without letting any one over-power another. My only complaints revolve around the false ending about 15 minutes before the real end, and too many vans(no, not the shoes or family vehicles - with Van Tassels and Van Garrets and an actor named Van Dein, I occasionally stopped trying to figure it all out).
There should be a stipulation built in to Burton's contracts- he always has to work with Johnny Depp, unless he'd rather start using Richard Grieco.
David says: ********** (9/10)
Aaaaaaah! Before seeing this, go to www.budkww.com, and get some weaponry . Then stop by a pumpkin patch for a fresh head, to replace the one lost on the path from the bridge. This is a well done movie, with only one flaw - someone likes blowing things up too much - I doubt that was a storehouse of high explosives! Fortunately, there where fewer exploding things than the average Xena episode... Also, Ichabod learned to ride very quickly -- after many summers of horse camp, I can't do half as well as he managed.
Johny Depp does an excellent job of playing a man who must confront his childhood memories in addition to an unfathomable evil that violates his sensibilities. In between his internal and external soul-searching, he manages to provide a greatly appreciated and well presented comic relief, even when done by just lying there in the dirt.
-our review of the preview:
SLEEPY HOLLOW
Johnny Depp stars in this version of the legend of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. He is a New York police detective in the late 1700's called to the New England area to help solve a crime that the locals think may involve the supernatural. The skeptical Depp finds out that they may be right. Some quick flashes of the head-impaired horseman and the creepy mind of director Tim Burton make this one worth seeing. Also starring Christina Ricci.