Candyman Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

4. The Script Is INSANELY On-The-Nose

Candyman 2021
Universal

It goes without saying that this new take on Candyman amplifies the racial themes of the 1992 original, placing a far greater emphasis on both gentrification and police brutality.

And as potential-rich as all that certainly is, one can't help but feel that Jordan Peele's script - which he co-wrote with DaCosta and Win Rosenfeld - veers on self-parody with how aggressively it rams these concepts down the viewer's throat.

There are numerous delineated scenes where characters discuss gentrification in the most base, simplistic terms, as though to ensure that the layperson - that is, ignorant white people - gets the message.

Without the satirical follow-through of Peele's Get Out, Candyman's tantalising themes feel clumsily mishandled, the film questioning the merits of art inspired by Black suffering while itself being a dubious example of it.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.