Review of Sleepy Hollow (1911) by Spencer S — 20 May 2011

Been meaning to see this for a very long time, even though I have heard nothing that didn't include sarcastic airquoting and rolling of the eyes. True, the horrific premise (That was a pun. Not a good pun, but a pun.

) was a concept only Burton could tackle, but then again, caution should also have been doled out when dealing with a simplistic storyline, that when expanded could indeed implode. Sadly, this is the case for the movie adaptation of The Headless Horsemen, a brickabrack of conspiracy theories, beheadings, and an eerie location, where the sun never shines, and everyone is somehow related to everyone else in town, an Applachian cousins reference if ever I've heard one.

Ichabod Crane, usually portrayed as a pants wetting example of what not to do, was cast, you guessed it, by Johnny Depp. Depp throws on another proper English accent, then promptly faints a lot. The character is in no way complex, which leads me to not care whether the horsemen nails him with a sword or not.

Besides all the clumsiness, you have legendary actor, and complete goof, Christopher Walken playing the horsemen, aquamarine eyes and pointed teeth to boot. Through a set of gnarled growls, he transforms into a terrifying monster.

(NOT! No one's used that joke since '99, but that's when the movie was made, so it's okay.) I did enjoy the scenes of violence, I mean, who doesn't. Don't want to be too harsh to a film that tried its best, but when your story is more complex than the Pentagon Papers, you lose your audience's interest real fast.