Candyman (2021)

 

Writer Nia DaCosta's second full-length feature as director, Candyman (2021), is a grisly hodge-podge of cinematic and cultural references that builds on the original 1992 film's commentary on racial injustice and other evils men do.

DaCosta and film producers / co-writers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld have enhanced the original picture's mythology but not altogether for the betterment of the storytelling. The picture pulls some interesting threads but it doesn't successfully tie them off, making arduous work parsing the meaningful from the trivial and the gratuitous.

In the film, the hook-handed avenger of Chicago's South Side has been reawakened by the brutalization of black men by the police. Stifled artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II of Watchmen) is introduced to the Candyman story by a gregarious laundry operator (Colman Domingo of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) for reasons that aren't immediately clear. The story of the murderous spirit who is summoned by the recitation of his name before a mirror (yes, a Bloody Mary allusion) inspires some disturbing painting by Anthony, who is living with his curator / girlfriend Brianna (Hopkins, South Carolina's own Teyonah Parris). Brianna is at first intrigued by Anthony's new vision but soon her fascination turns to dread. Her backstory could have been handled more effectively to lend more gravity to her fears.

Anthony's work takes a disfiguring toll on him and leads to the bloody deaths of some fairly unpleasant folks but these two events are not as neatly connected as they could have been. More explication and less bloodletting would have served the film well, and made its important and relevant message more impactful.