This 1999 supernatural serial-killer movie by Tim Burton, set in the late 18th century, isn’t what it purports to bean adaptation of Washington Irving’s great story The Legend of Sleepy Holloweven if the main setting (a village on the Hudson River in upstate New York) is roughly the same and the major characters have the same names. (For an adaptation halfway worthy of the name, you’d have to check out Walt Disney’s Ichabod and Mr. Toad, a cartoon turned out half a century earlier.) But it’s a visually impressive tribute to the Hammer horror movies Burton saw as a boy, and if that’s all you want you’ll probably have a blast, even if the script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven) is fairly formulaic. The castJohnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, and Jeffrey Jonesis fun to watch, and the pictorialism is often stunning. R, 111 min. (JR) Read more
In a millennial mood and neat black clothes, the devil (Gabriel Byrne) arrives in New York in search of a brideRobin Tunney plays his unsuspecting choiceand apparently the only one who can stop him from taking her (and humanity into the bargain) is Arnold Schwarzenegger, as an alcoholic ex-cop. He protects the young lady, whips Satan’s ass, gets crucified at least twice, and briefly turns into Lucifer himself, but saves the human race just the same. In real life, of course, Schwarzenegger is a millionaire, so who would dare begrudge him his desire to play Christ and the Antichrist at practically the same time? Catholics should find this loud, campy horror show a lot more offensive than Dogma, but I guess money speaks louder than faithand here, as in Paradise Lost, Satan gets all the best lines. Peter Hyams, a pretty good cinematographer but a mediocre director, goes to work on a script by Andrew W. Marlowe that Read more
