Review:

Candy man is an interesting idea and I guess they though that was enough. The first half of the movie is a bunch of half-baked plots that don't quite make sense or matter. We are almost half-way through the movie before the real plot kicks in and by then, I was already over it. Virginia Madsen is not good. She is wholly unconvincing and I didn't give half a crap about her character. Kasi Lemmons is pretty good, but she's it. Vanessa A. Williams (She is credited as Vanessa Williams in the opening credits and I spent the whole movie trying to figure out where the former Miss America and Desperate Housewives star is.) was especially bad. She keeps making these weird faces that are portraying some inhuman emotion and her emotions are far too melodramatic. It's a horror movie, so I can overlook bad acting, but it's just not scary either. I guess it kind of works as a thriller, but there is nothing horror-esque here. The Candyman character, who should be your "big bad" is far more confusing than imposing and scary. Candyman communicates via ADR, but the way it sounds makes it unclear is it's in the character's head or if his voice just emanates from everywhere like when God talks in a cartoon. He's supposed to be this supernatural legend and he can teleport and appears to have some minor shape-shifting abilities, but he seems awfully human. He sleeps and lives in an abandoned building and he's just as vulnerable as a regular person. I still don't exactly what Candyman is supposed to be and every time he talks about his mythology, he just says some circular nonsense. Candyman's motive is so confusing and il-defined. He's pitched as Bloody Mary, but they add all these extra layers in an attempt at some ham-fisted social commentary. I like the bees, I guess, but there aren't nearly enough. Before I started the movie, all I knew was bees. Where are all the bees? I had assumed Candyman's power was bees, but bees are a minor plot point. I didn't care about any of the characters, the kills were nothing special, and I couldn't even root for the bad guy because his character is a big mess. Wrap it up with a terrible ending and Candyman is a huge disappointment.