Did anyone else find Candyman 2021 kinda...tasteless?

I watched the most recent Candyman last night and didn't really care for it. It just dosen't really compare to the original at at all, lacking both the dream like quality and Tony Todd's sheer charisma. Some interesting ideas, but largely very boring. However, there is one part of the story that I found so utterly tasteless that I can't believe that no one talks about it, that this movie never got any major heat for it.

In the movie the main human villain explains that the Candyman from the original is not the only candyman. In fact, any Black man who dies from a racially motivated murder can potentially become a candyman. These candymen include Anthony Crawford, James Byrd Jr., and George Stinney, who are all actual Black men who have been murdered.

I'm not opposed to the idea of more than one candyman if the concept is actually used well but the movie totally wastes it. The Tony Todd one only shows up in (admittedly very well done) flashbacks and then at the very end for some reason that's never fully explained. Anthony isn't a candyman until the very end, and the candyman we do get for most of the movie, who provides all the kills, is just boring. Dude just smiles and floats around. He has none of the hypnotizing, Phantom of The Operaesque energy of Todd.

But not only is this idea poorly implemented, it just dosen't make sense in-universe. Both the O.G Candyman and this film's Candyman have hook hands being major parts of their backstory. Anthony is given before he dies because certain criteria needs to be met or whatever. But none of the other guys had hook hands irl or anything like that. So why did Anthony need one? Was him being murdered by the police not enough?

And, again, all the other candymen mentioned were real people. The most recent one, James Byrd Jr, died in 1998. That's less than thirty years ago! His children are still alive! This film implies that these real people, who suffered real violence, are evil murder ghosts. What the actual fuck? That's like if a movie twenty years from now said "oh yeah George Floyd is the boogeyman btw."

I remember when this movie came out and so many heaped praise on it. I'm just in awe that this script was actually allowed to see the light of day.

We should've got that Leperchaun crossover instead.