hey what's going on everybody and welcome back to my channel movie files elliott back again
with a brand new early movie review and this is a big one because this film wasn't only on
my most anticipated movies of this year but it was also on my list last year and i'm talking
about let me make sure there's no mirrors or anything around here talking about candyman
ladies and gentlemen which i got a chance to check out early and i'm just so excited to share
my thoughts with you all and let you know it's worth checking out in this spoiler-free review
before we break it all down do me a favor and check me out on all my other social media accounts
if you're new to the channel well welcome to the community consider subscribing to the channel
and hitting that notification bell that way you can get the alert from when i drop new content
if you all enjoyed this spoiler free review of candy man well make sure to like and share the
video it helps out the channel so much but i also appreciate all the support and in those comments
let's talk about a couple things number one have you seen the 1992 candyman have you seen the
sequels what was your excitement your anticipation level for this film and once you've seen the movie
we gotta talk about it let's talk about your pros and cons and everything in between from direction
cinematography score performances the narrative the kills the horror elements the continuation of
the character's legacy but let's also talk about some cons did the film not work for you were you
not scared were you disappointed let's talk about it all in the comments below so for me personally
1992's candyman to me has to be one of the most underrated slasher films of all time i think that
that film not only holds up so well i just watched it a couple weeks ago such a fantastic movie tony
todd the gore the blood the guts the legacy the lore being from chicago the urban legend the candy
man man listen i love me some candy man sequels not that great but the original fantastic horror
film do yourself a favor if you haven't seen it but nonetheless going into this movie nia decosta
i'm a big fan of hers jordan peel being a producer and having his hands in the screenplay and then
the talent in front of the camera you give me yaya dual machine a second you gave me my girl tiana
paris and then my main man coming to mikko listen i was beyond excited to see this film and here we
are discussion and starting off my positives first and foremost being a fan of candy man
the first half of this film the setup of this film to me was flawless the way that the film builds
on the urban legend and knows the legacy which is such a big part of this film the legacy that comes
with candyman and his legacy on the community of cabrini green and just building that lore and the
way that they continue to dive deeper in the candy man to me was again i think that the first half of
this movie the setup i i'm not gonna lie i thought it was completely flawless and i thought that the
first half and the establishment of the setup of the story was flawless in my opinion which brings
me into how this film kind of tackles the themes that we see that are really handled well number
one gentrification how this film talks about again legacy and how people that are in these positions
in the in the hoods of chicago and in other different urban areas how people wipe out history
and that's something that's obviously big into the lore of candyman the wiping out the forgetting the
history and forgetting the name and say my name that's something i thought was handled really
well in this film as well as the way that this film tackles generational black pain and black
trauma was really handed well and again it ties so perfectly into who candyman is and where he
comes from and how the name gets forgotten about and the legacy gets forgotten about
so i love how that film how this film tackles all those themes and there's many other things
those those themes really stand out to me but i want to talk about the woman behind the camera
who i am such a big fan of i'm talking about nia de costa i think she is a force to reckon with she
is not in the bracket quite yet but she's getting there based on what i've seen with her first film
little woods and now this and then hopefully with captain marvel 2 i think she is almost on the cusp
of being in the bracket of a black filmmakers and this generation ava duvernay ryan coogler
barry jenkins steve mcqueen jordan peele himself i think that she is getting that conversation
and the way that she kind of tackles this story through her lens from perspective of
a black woman in horror which is extremely rare may i say and we need more black women and more
black directors tackling this this genre in particularly but in regards to neither costa
i found her creative choices to be really distinct and that's what i love about her as a director she
has a style to her and i thought that the way that she was able to handle the story and the
way that she used the camera and the way that she conveyed the the flashbacks and the and conveying
the story of candyman through the paper mache was not only great but very creative so again
nina costa captain marvel too fingers crossed but also i would love to see her tackle more
horror stuff in the future i thought she was a really great director which brings me to other
production things that i adored about this film my man that did the composing in this film robert a
a lowell did such a fantastic job of making me feel uneasy very eerie very haunting score the
score is fantastic in this movie and also the sound design is incredible so production wise
thumbs two thumbs up for me but let's transition into the performances here i'm not gonna lie like
as i had mentioned i'm a big fan of the talented the talent involved in this film and i have to say
performances were fine no one blew me away but i thought that everyone did the job that
they were given and i thought that they did a good job in their roles you know whether it be
nathan stewart jared tiana paris coleman aminko all fine characters really solid performances
performances but like i said none of them really like blew me away and that brings me to
the lead of this film the young lion himself yaya abdul mateen ii who plays
anthony who is an artist who is just just like connected to the story of candy man and dives deep
into candyman and he's in his position in his life where he is an artist a starving artist
who's living with his girlfriend brianna played by tiana paris and he's someone that really hasn't
been in the limelight for a while so he's really connected to the story and i thought that seeing
anthony's descent into madness was very believable conveyed really well by yaya and seeing that
transition him being this man so infatuated with the story and having the story consume him
having this legacy consume his day-to-day life i thought that he conveyed that pretty well so again
wasn't blown away by anyone but i thought that they were all solid in their roles which
going to the horror element of this film i gotta mention this is in the trailers this
isn't a spoiler but i thought that the way that nia decosta shot the bathroom scene was one of my
favorite sequels as an entire movie and and kind of you know the horror elements which we'll talk
about which let's go ahead and transition to those are my pros let's talk about my criticisms being
the horror fan that i am especially slashers i always judge my horror films off of the first kill
unfortunately for me the first kill where it takes place in the film and the characters involved
the line delivery in the performances were very underwhelming and the horror in this film to me
and listen coming as a horror fan i'm 50 50 on this narrative and this this conversation at hand
when it comes to horror the argument about what you don't see can be just as scary as what you
do see and in this case in this film i wanted to see the kills i want to see the brutality
through the the nature of the kills and there's a lot of the times where nina decasa i think it's
very deliberate in how she shot the [ __ ] and how she handled it it's a creative choice that
i just didn't agree with i wanted to see more from the [ __ ] again if you go back to that 1992 films
man it was bloody it was gory i mean the rock riley the scene in the bathroom there's some
iconic horror moments in that film and when you compare this film in regards to how they
handle the horror again it's a creative choice i just wasn't a fan of how she handled it again
there's a lot of times where you don't see a lot of the kills a lot of times the camera
pans extremely out when you don't see all the brutality of what's going on the screen so i
just wasn't a fan of how they tackled the horror just in general and again if you compare it to
the original the [ __ ] is kind of lacking in that department to me personally which brings me into
the actual narrative and the the main plots that we get in the film again you have jordan peele who
i'm a big fan of i love me some jordan appeal and you can see some of the jordan pills influences
in the screenplay and particularly when i think of how they handle the acknowledgement of characters
who don't do certain tropes and horror films i really enjoyed that kind of uh
comedic elements of the film but also you know nina casa and when rosenfield wrote this
screenplay and i felt like the plot involving the art scene to me felt a bit uneven as well as i get
why they wanted to use art as like a main plot in this film obviously art comes with history
and obviously people being inspired by what came before and obviously ties into the candyman itself
but the art implementing the art scene to this film felt like a little bit of if you all saw this
film a couple years ago on on netflix uh velvet buzz saw it kind of felt like that to me which i
wasn't a fan of that film so i wasn't really that interested in this the art how they implement that
aspect of the film which brings me to a character brianna played by tiana paris her story and how
she's connected to art was very underwhelming and went absolutely nowhere in my opinion which
was unfortunate because it was something very interesting in her backstory but they just didn't
dive deep enough for me and her connections to the art scene which also brings me into our main
relationship between anthony and his girlfriend brianna you know yaya and tiana paris again
really good performances i thought the chemistry was there but i just never felt their connection
as a couple especially when the film unfolds and things start to unfold and this thing starts to
take place and you want to root for the characters in regards to their relationship but i've never
felt that relationship from those two characters which brings me to my biggest flaw of this film
the third act it doesn't crawl it doesn't walk it is a full-on sprint off of the cliff for me in the
third act of this film when it comes to concluding the story and the way the film handles some pretty
big reveals which as a fan of this franchise and seeing the trailer a couple years ago i kind of
knew where things were headed but when the film gives you the reveals i i i mean it guys it runs
to the finish line like when you get these reveals and you get the conclusion story the third act to
me is the weakest element of this film which i hate to say that because it it was shaping
up to be something really interesting but i i go back to the third act again i just feel like they
rushed everything in that third after the film and when it comes to certain plots of the movie
to me personally i feel like the film is a product of when it was shot which was in early 2019 and
the film kind of uh injects some social commentary which just didn't mesh well with how the narrative
was kind of telling which kind of brings me again to one of my biggest flaws with this movie
to me this film has a it's at odds with each other i feel like the narrative at hand
and also continuing the legacy of candyman just didn't match well for me personally you really
see that highlighted pretty poorly in the third after the film which brings me to no spoilers
the last shot of the movie as a fan of candy man and the legacy in the lore and the urban legend
it was a very cool shot in the film but it just kind of felt a little bit underwhelming and also
kind of felt a little bit empty all at the same time so those are my main criticisms with the
movie before i give you all my overall thoughts and my score and if you should see candyman if you
all have stayed this far to the video i appreciate you make sure if you haven't already to like the
video share the video leave your thoughts in the comments and of course subscribe to the channel
overall as a fan of 1992 candyman i won't say i was disappointed by this film but i will say i
was underwhelmed by the movie now i do applaud the creative direction by nia dacosta i thought
the performances were really solid i thought that the narrative gentrification and black
trauma and black pain and generational pain was handled pretty well in the film but unfortunately
the setup was so intriguing but the payoff to me when we get to that third act it just fell off the
cliff and it just felt so rushed but at the end of the day i can find more positives and negatives
i got the opportunity to have the screener so i do plan on re-watching this again but as i
stand right now recording this video i'm gonna give candy man a three out of five i gotta say
in regards to if it's worth seeing in theaters i think so i think there is a again if you are not a
horror fan i think you will be able to watch this movie because i don't think it resonates in the
horror genre for me it isn't a horror film in that sense especially compared to the 92 version but i
think there's still a good narrative some really good performances you know solid performances
really solid direction and has some really good things to say but again it's it was lacking in
the story and also that third act to me as a fan of this franchise just didn't really
work for me but again i give it a three out of five and that's just my thoughts i want to know
your thoughts once you all have seen the film again share your pros your cons your thoughts
on the performances the narrative how did you feel about the third act how did you feel about
the last scene in the film and let's have some dialogue about it again for every single one of
you all that is stuck onto this point of video thank you so much again remember to like share
comment subscribe hit the notification bell that way you don't miss any of my other future content
hope you all enjoyed this review hope you're staying safe don't look in the mirror and
don't say the name of this movie five times because it won't end well for you but this
has been my review for candyman hope you all are staying safe and we'll see you in the next video