Phoned in. That’s what Candy Cane Lane was. I’d rather listen to Sia’s Candy Cane Lane for 2 hours than watch another boring minute of this film again. At least Sia’s song tried to do something interesting.
On literal Candy Cane Lane lives the Carver family. Father Chris (Eddie Murphy) is in the holiday doldrums, just laid off and again losing the neighborhood lighting contest to his neighbor (Ken Marino and Anjelah Johnson-Reyes). Chris also has to watch his family in the middle of successes: his wife Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross) is about to be promoted, his daughter Joy (Genneya Walton) is on the verge of a college scholarship across the country, and his son Nick (Thaddeus J. Mixson) is becoming a great sousaphone player and music maker. Desperate for a win, Chris goes for the $100K lighting prize and buys a very beautiful decoration at Kringle’s from Pepper (Jillian Bell), who uses the lengthy fine print on her receipts to turn lost souls into porcelain fixtures in her Christmas display until the curse is broken.
Years of Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies have trained me to be ok with stakesless romantic movies that telegraph exactly where they are going. But instead of just doing one of those, these producers really pretend like they’re going for something. They invest heavily in a CGI laden premise that’s at least different: the Carver family has to return the 12 days of Christmas decorations that have come to life back to the decoration before the last Christmas bell tolls. Ok, that could be a recipe for funny shenanigans involving trying to catch birds, and getting pooped on, etc. And the cast isn’t some list of has beens: it’s really great performers like Eddie Murphy, Tracee Ellis Ross, David Alan Grier, and Jillian Bell, along with some interesting voiceover choices in Chris Redd, Nick Offerman, and Robin Thede. But I got my hopes up for nothing: you can feel everyone counting their money here, especially Ross and Murphy, who can elevate garbage dialogue if they want, but instead choose to draw inside the lines and get out of these as quickly as possible. I came close to laughing a couple times, but that’s it. I realized about an hour in I was blankly staring at the screen, unfeeling and essentially in standby mode, like the most mediocre streaming movies can do. At least Jillian Bell tries to do something, but she’s in it for 10 minutes and isn’t around enough to help.
At least we don’t get any weird messaging with Candy Cane Lane, just your standard “family is important” message. That means this film is just going to drop from my memory and never be seen or heard from again. Amazon Prime: this is your low, low Christmas movie benchmark. Try again next year, staring with a better script and actors who might care about the movie you’re filming. And put Candy Cane Lane in the “Folding Laundry?” genre ASAP.