Batman (1989)

Is it too bold to call Batman the most influential film of the past 25 years?  Sure, Saving Private Ryan changed battle scenes forever, and Pulp Fiction popularized nonsequential storytelling and awesome dialogue, but I really think there is a case to be made for Batman.  For starters, this is the first "dark" take on any comic book hero; before this, you had the campiness of Batman: The Movie (1966) and Flash Gordon (aaa-AAA-aaa!!!)

This was the first big-budget comic book movie, the first one to make a controversial casting choice (Mr. Mom as Batman?), the first one to take something resembling a real-life look at superheroes (look ma, no spandex!), and the first superhero movie to get award recognition (it won an Oscar and had an acting Golden Globe nomination --- an acting nomination in a comic book movie!).  This is the film that allowed Tim Burton to do whatever he wanted for the next ten or fifteen years.  Heck, this is the sole reason they made the fantastic Batman: The Animated Series, and that alone is enough of a legacy for me.

So, even though you already know the basics, I'm going to run through the Bat-plot.  The movie opens with a couple of thugs robbing a family in Gotham City and making off with their spoils.  Naturally, they go up to the rooftop of a building to do this, because going to a hideout, alley, apartment, or their car would be much too private.  One of the thugs is nervous that "the Bat" will come after them; he heard that so-and-so got dropped off a building by the Bat.  Naturally, that's nonsense.  That is when Batman (Michael Keaton) suddenly appears.  He kicks the ever-loving crap out of one guy, but then takes a bullet to the chest and goes down.  But he doesn't stay down.  He get right back up and scares the remaining thug; Batman politely tells him to spread the word to all his hoodlum friends that Batman is protecting Gotham City's streets.  I detail this opening scene for a reason, but I'll get to that later.

Basically, this is a "Batman Begins" before Batman Begins.  Bats is a fairly new sight in town, more of an urban legend than a known entity.  The police are not sure what to make of him, either, but they've got other things on their plate.  Organized crime has Gotham City under siege.  Instead of doing the logical thing and calling Steven Seagal, Lawman, to fix their problems, Gothamites instead opt to elect a new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams) to help Police Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) in his war on crime.  Their "war" is not terribly effective, though, as local mob kingpin Carl Grissom (Jack Palance) and his number two man, Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson), are having their way with the town.  Things start to get complicated when Grissom realizes that Napier is sleeping with his fugly girlfriend, Alicia (Jerry Hall), and sets Jack up to get busted by the police. In the ensuing raid, the police (with the help of Batman) manage to back Napier into a corner, only to have him "accidentally" fall into a vat of dangerous chemicals.  Dangerous, but not apparently lethal.  Jack Napier survived his chemical bath with only a few side-effects: chalky white shin, green hair, his cheek muscles frozen into a big grin, and little to no sanity.  The Joker has arrived.

Meanwhile, a couple of reporters, Alex Knox (Robert "Arliss" Wuhl) and Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), are trying to dig into the Batman story.  Does he exist?  Does he work for the police?  Why are there no photos of him?  Et cetera?  Et cetera?  Little do they realize that the mysterious and wealthy Bruce Wayne spends his evenings dressing up as a giant bat to fight crime.  If I was a reporter and saw all the customized and expensive equipment Batman had (Hello?  Batmobile?  He even has a Batplane!), I would certainly begin suspecting the nearest millionaire, but that's just me.  Can Batman handle these two muckrakers and still defend the city against a sociopath who has just upgraded to psychopath?  And what about love?  Does he have time for love?  Oh, wait...sorry...I got "love" and "beating the hell out of criminals" mixed up again.

This is a movie that changed the industry.  For better or for worse, there would be no Spider-Man, X-Men, or Watchmen without the success of Batman, much less any of the dozens of lesser-known works that have become movies over the past few years.  The first thing this movie does right is in the set design department.  Gotham City looks awesome.  It's big, tall, imposing, and dirty --- the perfect place for crime to breed.  Wayne Manor is perfect, too; it's big, imposing, and museum-like --- absolutely the last place you would want to eat soup.  The costumes are good, too.  It was nice to finally see a superhero that wasn't wearing his underwear on the outside of his outfit.  And, since Batman has no super-powers, adding things like bulletproof armor makes sense; his tools on his utility belt looked real and effective, too.  Of course, Batman's vehicles looked awesome, even if the Batmobile is impractical for city driving.

Right.  It's that easy to find street parking for this beast.

Once you get past the sets, costumes, and props, what are you left with?  Some surprisingly solid acting, actually.  I've always liked Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman, partially because he was able to convey both distraction and mental unrest separately, and also because he made a pretty good Batman.  Let's be honest, though --- his charming Bruce Wayne performance is what grounds this movie.  This is essentially the only action role Keaton ever played, so kudos to Tim Burton for having the vision to cast him.  Of course, you can't talk about Batman without mentioning Jack Nicholson's performance as the Joker.  I think Nicholson's work here has been diminished in the past few years by Heath Ledger's amazing performance in The Dark Knight, but that's a little unfair.  The key comic stories that inspired Ledger's performance had not been written yet when this film was being shot; I know Tim Burton often credits The Killing Joke as inspiration for his movie, but it was published a month before pre-production started for this movie, so I doubt it had much of an impact.  Despite this, Nicholson came off as a devious, dangerous loon, and he's a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  Besides, he manages to look good while wearing a purple suit.  He's no Prince, but he still looks good.  Heck, his Jack Napier performance alone was good enough for its own movie.  Aside from the powerful performances from the two lead actors, most of the supporting cast was only decent.  Michael Gough did a good job as Alfred, Bruce Wayne's fatherly butler, and Tracey Walter (who got the job just because he's friends with Nicholson) was awesome as the Joker's henchman Bob, but the rest were pretty dull.  That's too bad, because Billy Dee Williams is capable of a little more than that (but not much more).  As for Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Jack Palance,  Jerry Hall and the rest...well, they played their parts.  I'll give Jerry Hall some credit --- I have trouble differentiating between her pre-Joker-deformed face and her regular one.  Wait..."credit" was probably the wrong term to use there...

Tim Burton's direction is pretty good, but it is a little dated.  Yes, Batman was surprisingly and refreshingly gritty in 1989.  Yes, he got good (even great) performances from his two lead actors.  The look and feel of the movie are great.  And yet, there is a lot more campiness in this film than I remembered.  Most of it deals with Joker's henchmen; they all have matching, custom-made uniforms, drive professionally detailed Joker-themed cars, and are willing to die for the Joker for reasons I cannot fathom.  As amazing as Bob's final scene is, if I was dumb enough to be a villain's henchman, that would have been the moment I decided to retire.  As for Burton's "dark" take on the characters, it has gotten comparatively lighter with time.  When Batman was first released, it was a revelation to the general public that wasn't nerdy enough to have studied The Dark Knight Returns already.  Over twenty years later, though, it almost feels quaint, especially when compared to Batman Returns and the Christopher Nolan movies.  Despite all that, I think this was a monumental effort by Burton to go against expectations and risk a lot of money on an idea that had no guarantee of success.  Is this Burton's best work?  No, it's not even his best Batman movie.  It is, however, the godfather of the new millennium's summer blockbusters, and it deserves some respect, dammit.

The story doesn't deserve as much respect, though.  I like that this isn't an origin story for Batman, but I wish it was a little less silly at times.  What's so silly?  In a word, the Batplane.  In two words, Joker's revolver.  Let's ignore the idiocy of characters that live in fear of the Joker when he poisons their groceries, but dance in the streets with him if he's giving away money --- that obviously won't have a catch, right?  By the way, Arliss, if there is poison gas killing people all around you, a paper face mask isn't going to protect you.  Thank goodness there are no police near this publicly advertised parade.  Am I the only one who wonders how Batman's identity remains a secret after this movie?  He crashed his custom-made Batplane.  Commissioner Gordon should be fired if he lets his CSI team investigate the wreckage and not track down a manufacturer.

And what about the scene where Bruce Wayne is trying to explain to Vicki Vale that he's Batman?  Man, this scene is a sign of the times.  Wayne tries to explain it to her by talking about personalities having different aspects, and sometimes it's almost like you have to lead another life to express yourself fully.  If this scene was shot today, we would naturally assume that Bruce Wayne is gay.  Instead, Vicki assumes that he is married.  I guess, with Robin out of the picture, there is a little more leeway in that discussion.

Back to the story.  Let's focus on that first scene, where Batman is introduced.  I don't like that Batman, who has been strictly a non-killing vigilante since the 1940s, has been rumored to kill random thugs.  Sure, it's just a rumor, but it still bugs me --- and I'm pretty sure he lets a few random thugs fall to their deaths in the chapel scene, too.  Not cool, Bats.  I also don't like that Batman lets a random street thug pull a gun on him, much less shoot him in the chest and knock him off his Batfeet.  Maybe I just have a little more respect for Batman than most screenwriters, but I think Batman comes off as occasionally amateurish in this movie.  I mean, he has the balls to dress up for Halloween every night and attack violent criminals; you would think he would be a smarter, tougher, meaner opponent than "you shot me, so now I'll scare you."  Even this horribly written comic book panel grasps the Batman idea better than these screenwriters.

Despite the story weaknesses, this is still a fun movie to watch.  I'll admit to nitpicking some of those problems; I just think Batman is an awesome character that deserves the best.  Batman changed what we expected from comic book adaptations and has led to dozens of awesome (and some godawful) action movies since.  It's cool, fun, and influential.  Sure, it's a little silly, but what do you expect from a movie about a guy who dresses up like a rodent to fight crime?

On a closing note, I can't resist mentioning the Batman soundtrack, which was composed by Prince.  I always giggle when I imagine how excited Warner Brothers was to have multi-platinum (and Warner Brothers property) Prince do the whole soundtrack...and then he turned in "Batdance."  Seriously, what the hell was that?

I love me some Prince (he is The Man, after all...well, he's The Kid, anyway), but the success of this soundtrack astounds me.  It topped the Billboard charts and had four legitimately successful singles, including "Batdance," which somehow became a Number One hit single.  That has to be one of the dumbest hit singles of the 80s, and I know there is a lot of competition for that crown.  The public did benefit from this soundtrack in two distinct ways.  First and foremost, we got to see that Prince could be a convincing comic book character (nice hair).  Second, "Batdance" was followed as a single by "Partyman," which means that the first two hit singles from this album were both over seven minutes long.  I dare you to find another album that pulls that off.  Prince is The Man!

Alice In Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors, because he makes odd little films that somehow manage to become big hits.  I tend to prefer his more intimate work (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Big Fish) over his obvious blockbusters (Batman, Planet of the Apes), but I always find his work interesting.  When you add my favorite actor and Burton collaborator, Johnny Depp, to the mix, you definitely have my attention.  Add those two oddballs to the fictional world of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and you have a guaranteed formula for weirdness.

It should be pointed out that, despite the title, this actually isn't an adaptation or re-imagining of the source material, or even of the Disney animated classic.  Instead, it serves as a sequel of sorts.  This time around, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is a teenager instead of a child.  Like all Wonderland stories, this one begins in the real world.  Alice is attending a party when she fields an unexpected (and unwanted) proposal for marriage; she is at the marrying age for Victorian England, and the match is sensible and proper.  And, in typical Tim Burton style, "sensible and proper" seem positively horrid, with madness being a preferable alternative.  Almost as if she is signaling for a rodeo clown to distract the bull away from her, Alice notices a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat.  Since her options are follow the rabbit or definitively choose a life path, the nineteen year-old Alice opts to follow the rabbit.  From here, things begin to get a little deja vu; Alice visits all the same places and meets all the same characters that she did in the original stories --- she eats stuff and grows/shrinks, she chases the White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen), she goes to the Mad Hatter's (Johnny Depp) tea party, and gets confused by the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry) and the Caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman).  Alice seems to be going through these experiences for the first time, but something seems...different about everything.  The only clue we have that this is a new tale is the fact that all the the inhabitants of Underland (not Wonderland) remember an Alice from years ago.  It has even been prophesied that Alice will be the one to kill the Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) fearsome dragon, the Jabberwocky (voiced by Christopher Lee).  Alice is supposed to kill a creature of Wonderland?  Well, that's different.  And, as this film insists, this really isn't Wonderland, but Underland.  What's the difference?  While both are filled with imaginative landscapes and characters, Underland is the nightmarish twin to the world of Wonderland; apparently, things were once shiny and happy, when the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) ruled, but things have gotten darker and more serious under the Red Queen's reign.  But is this Alice the Alice of the prophesy?  Or is this all something else, something darker?

Not too long ago, I read Lewis Carroll's works for the first time.  Frankly, I was underwhelmed.  I will admit to an unusual joy of language present in these stories, and some pretty interesting imagery, but I wasn't impressed on the whole.  In all honesty, I think that these stories are excellent launching points for adventures, but I am happy to see that most adaptations to the stories aren't slavishly devoted to the source material.  Obviously, then, I have no problem with Burton's Underland.  I do have a problem with the title, though.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I think that film titles are important indicators of the film's content; if I pop in a DVD titled Bambi, it had better be an animated deer story, and not a live-action bestiality flick.  Titling this Alice in Wonderland seems disingenuous to me, because the films goes to great lengths to differentiate itself from previous movie incarnations and the source material.  Alice in Underland would have been more appropriate, I think, and still drawn the connection to Wonderland.

The first thing that struck me about this film was its appearance.  Visually, this is a fantastic piece of moviemaking.  The environment, even though it is almost a post-apocalyptic version of Wonderland, is still full of color and detail.  The character designs were astounding, so different from the classic versions of the characters, and yet they all had something iconic that made them seem somehow familiar.  The use of CGI in the film was some of the best I have seen utilized in any motion picture.  Obviously, the environment was largely CGI, but most of the characters had something altered in post-production, some in subtle ways; Crispin Glover, who plays the Red Knave, had everything except his head replaced by CGI.  Tim Burton has always been a visual filmmaker, but this was really a step above anything else I've seen of his.

This film was chock full of recognizable actors, each of whom did a good job.  Many of them stuck to the classic interpretation of their characters, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Matt Lucas (Tweedledee and Tweedledum), Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, and Alan Rickman were the principal actors who followed that practice.  There were several bit parts where I recognized the actor, but not the character.  Timothy Spall played a bloodhound, Michael Gough voiced a dodo bird, Crispin Glover was awkward as ever as the Knave, and Imelda Staunton was one of the talking flowers --- none of these were huge roles, but I found it interesting that such small parts were played by actors I have seen in so many other films.

Now let's talk about the departures from the norm.  For starters, Paul Whitehouse's March Hare had a dangerous edge to him that bordered on sociopathic.  While Christopher Lee's lines as the Jabberwocky fell in line with Carroll's poem, I'm not so sure about the use of this character as a fearsome enemy.  Anne Hathaway was okay as the White Queen, showing a few hints at bizarre character traits, but I don't think she had enough screen time to develop her character much.  Helena Bonham Carter had more screen time, but most of it was spent emphasizing how odd her character was and was, I think, supposed to generate more laughs than I gave it.  I felt that Mia Wasikowska did a pretty good job as Alice, making her one of the stronger heroines I've seen in a children's movie; I'm not entirely convinced that her "roll with the weirdness" attitude was the right one for a character entering Underland, but it was a choice and she stuck to it.  And then there's Johnny Depp.  The Mad Hatter isn't a character that is usually given depth, but here he has a back story and plays a critical role in the film.  To do that, Burton and Depp had to change the character significantly, and not just cosmetically (although his CGI/makeup was some of the most interesting in the film); this Hatter seems to have almost a split personality, with the harmless goofball character that is well known and a Scottish (I think) warrior character that is brand new.  I think Depp captured the mercurial nature of his character well, but his character is one of the aspects of this film that I found disappointing.

I have heard that Alice in Wonderland is not so much a children's story, so much as it is an acid trip told in nonsense rhymes.  Yes, this is a story that is typically aimed at children, and yes, this story does has some surreal nightmare qualities to it.  I think that balance lends itself nicely to Tim Burton's guiding hand; much of his work appears dark, but has a childlike quality at its core.  On the surface, this is a can't-miss concept.  In practice, though, all the visual effects in the world can't disguise the fact that the story in Alice in Wonderland is lacking.  There isn't a strong narrative, which shouldn't be a problem, since this is a story that should be about the wonders of this Underland.  But the whole movie builds toward a final battle that fails to do anything imaginative and ends up as a surprisingly dull action sequence.  Because this movie has that climax and they foreshadow it from the beginning, the rest of the story feels like an unstructured jumble that rambles on without much purpose.  Personally, I would have preferred a story where there was more rambling and a less typical climax.

With that story structure in place, though, Alice must be given motivation for trying to thwart the Red Queen's rule.  Since Alice is a stranger, that motivation has to come from the supporting cast, which ends up being the most prominent Underland inhabitant, The Mad Hatter.  I love me some Johnny Depp, and he is occasionally very charming in this role, but the militant edge to his character is left largely unexplained and his shifts into that persona are abrupt and unexplained.  This could have been circumvented if Alice had a personal stake in Underland, but she does not, and remains fairly dispassionate about the bizarre events surrounding her.

This movie just feels like ninety percent of the creative process focused on how the film would look, and maybe ten percent was spent on the story itself.  There are so many pieces of this film that work.  I liked all the voice acting and I didn't see a poor performance in the whole film.  I don't particularly like Depp or Mia Wasikowska's characters, but I think they both played their parts well.  There are all sorts of high concept issues brought up in this film (Colonialism, feminism, etc.), but I was happy to see these topics left without any explicit conclusions.  And let's not forget just how gorgeous this movie is.  Just looking at promotional posters for this movie makes me want to watch it again.  No, that's not right...they make me want my own production stills, framed and mounted on my wall.  I really liked a lot about this movie.  I just didn't like...well, the movie part of it.  With such a surprisingly limp emotional core, I was left unsatisfied with the film and extremely disappointed in Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.  The gorgeous peculiarity that is Alice in Wonderland is certainly worth viewing, but the story is inconsequential at best. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Not every Christmas-themed movie has to have the spirit of the holiday.  If you need proof, check out the truly awful Jack Frost (1996) --- the horror one, not the Michael Keaton horrible one.  So when The Nightmare Before Christmas was released just before Halloween 1993, with Tim Burton's name above the title, it would have been understandable to expect something distinctly non-traditional, as far as Christmas movies go.  And yes, there are goblins and monsters and whatnot, but it turns out to be far more Christmas-y than you might suspect.

Apparently, there is a self-contained town for every major holiday.  There's a Valentine Town, a Thanksgiving Town, and presumably a Guy Fawkes Town and a Casmir Pulaski Town.  In these towns, the citizens live and breathe the spirit of the holiday; their whole year builds up to one day, and the day after begins the cycle anew.   In Halloween Town, Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon for the dialogue, Danny Elfman for the singing) is the town's leader, The Pumpkin King, and the man with the most Halloween spirit.  Jack, though, is having a crisis of faith.  The repetitious cycle of preparing for Halloween, providing scares on Halloween, and then doing it all over again, year after year, is wearing him down.  While taking a melancholy walk, Jack stumbles into a gateway to the other holiday towns and chooses to enter Christmas Town on a whim.

Christmas Town is refreshing, surprising, and (most importantly) new to Jack.  Snow (what's this?) is everywhere, elves are making presents (what are they?), Christmas trees are being decorated (why?), and the whole town is apparently being run by the presumably fearsome Santy Claws.  Jack returns home to try and explain the concept of Christmas to Halloween Town, even if he doesn't quite understand it himself.  While talking about the unfamiliar holiday, Jack realizes that the only way these Halloweenies are going to truly understand the day will be to hijack it and add their own flair to it, making it a trick-or-treat sort of Christmas.

Despite the inclusion of his name above the credits, Tim Burton did not have a huge part in the assembling of this film.  He came up with the concept and some of the preliminary character designs before shelving the project for about a decade.  When he was finally able to get back to it, Burton's obligations to Batman Returns, along with a distaste for the mind-numbing process of stop-motion animation, kept him from directing or writing the film.  Instead, he came up with an outline, Danny Elfman came up with songs, and then they hired a director and screenwriter.  Definitely an unusual production story.

The film looks fantastic.  This is some of the most expressive motion-capture animation you will find anywhere, and the character design is generally pretty good, with a couple of noteworthy exceptions (Sally and Doctor Finklestein) being great.  Halloween Town has its own distinct feel and architecture, as do Christmas Town and the Real World.  Director Henry Selick does a great job making sure that the animation in this film is flawless and innovative (how do they even have a transparent motion-captured dog ghost?), and yet, there is no question that the film has a Tim Burton (read: left of center) feel to it.

I'm not particularly fond of musicals, but this one is okay, I guess.  I don't have any attachment to any single song, which is strange.  Normally, I can pick out the dominant song in a musical, but this soundtrack all seems to be on roughly the same level.  The songs aren't bad, mind you, but I think they are definitely less charming than the film as a whole.  My theory for this is that the Halloween characters don't lend themselves too naturally to singing in character (I'm talking more about the Halloween Town people, not the lead singers), so when they pop up in a song, it's cute (oh, that's right, it's Halloween), but I think the songs are undercut by including them.

I've always liked this movie, though.  It's a fun plot for kids and it's got a bit of edge in a genre (Disney movies) that is largely lacking anything sharper than a spoon.  The voice acting is pretty good, with Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara (as Sally), and William Hickey (Doctor Finklestein) having the most noteworthy performances; I liked Danny Elfman's singing, as well, and was surprised by the quality of Catherine O'Hara's singing voice.  Really, this is a cute movie about finding and understanding the ideals of the Christmas season --- what else can it be about, since the characters are discovering these notions for the first time?  And, in that, this movie is successful.  Personally, I would like a more frightening movie that takes advantage of how horrible the Halloweenies can be, but I understand that this is a children's movie.

But something is still missing from this film.  If it was just about discovering the new feelings that come from another holiday, I think that would be enough; Halloween is for fun scares and Christmas is (allegedly) about giving and emotional warmth.  The love story between Jack and Sally takes precedence by the end of the film, though.  I dunno, sometimes I think this movie didn't know exactly what emotional buttons it wanted to press, so they just pushed at random.  It is certainly a charming kid's movie, but it doesn't pack the emotional punch (or memorable songs) that the best animated features do.  I'm a pretty visual guy, though, so the fantastic animation makes up for some of those shortcomings.

Sleepy Hollow

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, for those that haven't read it, is not necessarily what I would call "ready for the big screen."  In the story, Ichabod Crane, while the most notable character, is definitely not a hero.  He is a superstitious, brown-nosing teacher that competes for the hand of Katrina Van Tassel until he is chased by the Headless Horseman and leaves town.  With Crane gone, Katrina marries the rival for her affections, Brom Van Brunt.  The story implies that Van Brumt dressed as the Horseman to scare Crane away.  So, let's recap: the main character is superstitious (read: foolish) and is outwitted.  It turns out that the Headless Horseman is just a myth, and it was used by a clever man to remove a romantic rival.  Definitely not something that would translate well into a movie, which explains why there hadn't been a film adaptation of the tale since the 1920s.

All it took was Tim Burton and Johnny Depp to remake this story for modern times.  Sleepy Hollow features Depp in the role of Ichabod Crane, a New York City constable, dedicated to the new-fangled methods of scientific investigation (autopsies, finger-printing, etc).  Crane has annoyed his superiors with his know-it-all attitude for some time, so he is dispatched to the far-off town of Sleepy Hollow, which has had a rash of murders.  When he arrives, Crane is informed by the townsfolk that the killer's identity is known; it is the Headless Horseman, the spirit of a bloodthirsty Hessian mercenary, who lost his head in death.  Since the killer was known, Crane declared "Case closed!" and returned to New York City.  No, not really.  Crane, obviously, doesn't believe that a headless creature from beyond the grave is murdering the townsfolk and investigates.  Eventually, he finds out that there IS a headless creature from beyond the grave murdering the townsfolk.  That wasn't a spoiler.  Along the way, Crane develops a fairly innocent romance with Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci), daughter to the most powerful man in town.  He also uncovers a conspiracy that ties the victims together and begins to explain why the Horseman is terrorizing the town and how he chooses his victims.

Depp makes some interesting acting choices in this role.  He plays Crane as decidedly effeminate; aside from some little half-yelps he gives from time to time, he is prone to hiding behind women and children when he is frightened.  That's a pretty ballsy choice for a Hollywood lead.  While this isn't one of Depp's typical weirdo roles, he comes off as intelligent and it's fun to see him squirm when he sees blood.  It's not his deepest role, but he is quirky and shows development as the film progresses (plus, Depp is awesome).  As Katrina, Christina Ricci attempts to make her character seem like an innocent babe.  In the attempt, Ricci goes past "innocent" and lands somewhere in the range of "infantile" or "simple-minded."  This wouldn't be bad, but she shows almost no emotional range --- her voice doesn't change whether she is happy or upset with Ichabod.  Ricci's uncharacteristic performance doesn't hurt the overall film, but it is kind of annoying.  She went from rags to riches and she doesn't have even a little bitterness or sarcasm? 

The other actors turn in solid supporting performances.  Casper Van Dien plays Brom, and (like in the story) he poses as the Horseman to scare Ichabod.  Van Dien is not a very talented actor, but he lends some credibility to the only real action scene in the film, so I guess that was decent casting.  Christopher Lee and Martin Landau make brief cameos (Landau was uncredited in his role) that don't add much, but cameos are really only there for the fans and are effective in that regard.  Jeffrey Jones, Richard Giffiths, Michael Gambon, and Michael Gough all do decently with their supporting roles as town elders and co-conspirators.  As for the supporting ladies, Lisa Marie does what you might expect from her, providing little (or, in this case, no) dialogue and ample cleavage.  Miranda Richardson has a good time cackling toward the end and does a pretty good job of portraying crazy.  The best supporting role, though, belongs to Christopher Walken as the Headless Horseman.  It's not that he does much, but Walken is one of the best actors for a bit role you can imagine.  With Tim Burton's direction, the Horseman comes off as genuinely creepy, evil and malevolent.

The draw to this movie is not the story (There's a Headless Horseman?  What a twist!) or the acting, but Burton's vision.  While this is not the most imaginative of his movies, it still has his unmistakable feel.  As a director, Tim Burton focuses less on the actor's performances and more on the overall feel of the movie.  This movie won an Oscar for Art Direction and was nominated for costumes and cinematography, and after watching this again, I have to say that I'm not surprised.  The costumes are good (read: colonial-looking), the town is better (authentically colonial, despite being built for the film), and the camera work is the best you will find in a horror movie since The Shining.  While there is a fair amount of blood (brilliantly crimson blood, at that), the movie isn't very gory for a film that features several beheadings.

This adaptation of the classic tale does deviate greatly from the original story, but I think these changes were chosen well.  The major element that everyone remembers from the original story (the Horseman) was just a guy in a costume; here, he becomes bigger than life --- or death.  Making Crane a detective instead of a teacher helps make him a more formidable opponent.  Introducing a conspiracy to the plot adds a mystery that, while not necessary, helps draw the story out long enough to be satisfying.  While I don't imagine Washington Irving's rabid fanbase made a big furor over these changes, they were key to allowing this to go beyond the confines of the short story and expand as a feature film.  Kudos to Burton for seeing the horror in this quaint tale of Americana.