Candy Cane Lane: Eddie Murphy Wants to Be the Elf of Christmas

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Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes:

Eddie Murphy stars in this holiday comedy adventure about a man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest. After Chris (Eddie Murphy) inadvertently makes a deal with a mischievous elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell) to better his chances of winning, she casts a magic spell that brings the 12 Days of Christmas to life, and wreaks havoc on the whole town. At the risk of ruining the holidays for his family, Chris, his wife Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross), and their three children must race against the clock to break Pepper’s spell, battle deviously magical characters, and save Christmas for everyone.

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Review:

Eddie Murphy is in the Elf stage of his career, when an actor does more Holiday movies than regular ones. Candy Cane Lane reunites Murphy with Reginald Hudlin his Boomerang director in a Christmas special for Amazon Prime. Murphy’s comic charm elevates Lane above the usual cliches of the genre: magical mayhem involving mischievous elves, community holiday displays competitions, family issues and past Christmas traumas being overcome by the main cast.

A magical pop up Christmas tree ignites the Gremlins mayhem and similarities. Here, it’s human turned Christmas figurines. The plot revolves around the collection of magic rings and situations all mentioned in the Xmas carol Twelve Days of Christmas. Failure means Murphy will spend eternity as a villager figurine.

There is much to like in the charming animated figurine effects. Most of the jokes and repartee are within the realm allowed in holiday features. Candy Cane Lane just loses pace and focus as the plot expands into other individual crisis, that are often insubstantial. It is twenty minutes longer than it needs to be. Remove some of the sour bits and it will be a perfectly fine piece of Holiday fluff.

Candy Cane Lane gets a 3.0 out of 5 or a B.

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Credits:

Directed by

Reginald Hudlin

Written by

Kelly Younger

Produced by

• Brian Grazer
• Eddie Murphy
  • Karen Lunder
  • Charisse Hewitt-Webster

Starring

• Eddie Murphy
  • Tracee Ellis Ross
  • Jillian Bell
  • Thaddeus J. Mixson
  • Ken Marino
  • Trevante Rhodes
  • David Alan Grier
  • Nick Offerman

Cinematography

Newton Thomas Sigel

Edited by

• Jim May
• Kenny G. Krauss

Music by

Marcus Miller

Production

companies

• Amazon MGM Studios
• Imagine Entertainment
  • Bubble Pictures

Distributed by

Amazon Prime Video

Release date

• December 1, 2023

Running time

120 minutes

Country

United States

Language

English

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