Review: Candyman

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Nia DaCosta's"Candyman" remake-reboot-sequel-whatever-you-want-to-call-it is a film that's filled to the brim with ideas, and manages to sneak some compelling social commentary into its story. So, it's a shame that the film's execution problems get in the way of all of the - for lack of a better phrase - good stuff.

The original 1992 "Candyman" film directed by Bernard Rose easily remains the best in the series in terms of quality, scares, tone and thematic elements. Jordan Peele, who directed the very good "Get Out" and "Us," is the producer on this latest "Candyman," so it comes as no surprise that this new film has a fair amount on its mind, and weaves into its story elements that feel urgent in the wake of Black Lives Matter, police brutality and the open racism that has been plaguing this country.

The problem with the new "Candyman" isn't that the concepts it explores aren't compelling, but rather that its plotting is all over the place, and some of the concepts are a little too broad, whereas the exploration of how racism led to the original Candyman's presence was more concrete. In this new film, it's a little more nebulous to the film's detriment.

For starters - and this is a spoiler alert - the film could be titled "Candymen." In other words, Daniel Robitaille (Tony Todd) - the artist-turned-avenging-angel of Chicago's Cabrini Green housing projects who haunted the first films in the series after being brutally tortured and covered in honey, so that bees could sting him to death due to his dalliance with a white woman - is a presence in the new "Candyman," but only to an extent.

Instead, the film's lead character - Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), an artist on the brink of success who has a girlfriend, Brianna (Teyonah Parris), who also works in the art world - comes to find out that the former site of the housing projects, which was torn down a decade ago, has become plagued by a series of figures similar to Robitaille, all of whom were killed by the cops or died by other unjust means.

One of the figures is a mentally handicapped man from the 1970s who handed out candy to children in the projects, but when pieces of candy with razor blades in them began to circulate - and one ends up in the mouth of a white girl - the man was beaten to death by the cops. It is later discovered that he was innocent, and now his ghost is among the Candymen haunting the area. The fact that this particular Candyman throws pieces of candy at his victims before killing them almost turns the figure into somewhat of a joke.

There's a fair amount of reference to the series' first film, from lengthy discussions about Virginia Madsen's lead character, who was researching urban legends in that movie, to an appearance by Vanessa Williams' character from the 1992 original. There's also a plot line involving the baby who was snatched by the Candyman in the first film, and there's a back story for another man who witnessed the mentally handicapped man get beaten to death when he was a child.

This latter back story allows for a confusing and particularly clunky finale in which the stories of Anthony and his girlfriend and the man who witnessed the beating as a boy converge. It is at that point the audience finally gets what it's waiting for in terms of catching up with a character from the original film, but it's a little too late at this point.

This new film is particularly brutal - there's a gory murder of an art gallery owner and his intern - and some of the violence appears tacked on just for the sake of it. For example, the film cuts away from the main story to a group of teenage girls at a high school who say the Candyman's name in the mirror, for no other reason than to up the film's body count. On the other hand, there's a particularly effective murder of another character that is seen from far away through an apartment window.

In terms of modern context, there's some interesting stuff going on in the film - for example, Anthony's exhibit on Robitaille and the legend of the Candyman is called "Say His Name," incorporating the spate of police killings of unarmed Black people in the United States with the fact that one must say the Candyman's name five times in a mirror to summon him. 

But while many of the subjects covered in the film - from gentrification to white supremacy - fit well into this particular story, many of the characters in the picture speak as if they're delivering a dissertation, rather than having the type of conversations most people might have on such topics. A scene in which a snooty art critic dismisses Anthony's work involves phrasing that might sound right in the purpose of a magazine essay, but not in the actual speech between two people.

So, while the new "Candyman" has some interesting ideas, it doesn't always know what to do with them. Its story gets a little slighted, the characters seemingly exist to fulfill the purposes of the screenplay, unlike those in the original film, and the overall result feels somewhat slapdash. In terms of horror movie sequels, "Candyman" has more on its mind than most. It just doesn't express its ideas in a manner that necessarily makes for compelling moviegoing.