Title – Candy Cane Lane (2023) 

Director – Reginald Hudlin (Marshall) 

Cast – Eddie Murphy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jillian Bell, Ken Marino 

Plot – Determined to win his streets annual Christmas decoration competition, recently made redundant family man Chris Carver (Murphy) unknowingly makes a deal with devious elf Pepper (Bell) that causes havoc for him and others in the lead up to Christmas Day. 

“Rise and shine naughty boy”

Review by Eddie on 24/04/2024

A part of the regular abundance of end of year festive themed films that come our way once the silly season in sight, 2023’s Amazon Prime backed Candy Cane Lane may on paper appear to be a modern day take on the age old Christmas Vacation/Deck the Halls type affair but things get very weird very quickly in this Eddie Murphy starring oddity that is worth enduring purely to see how odd things can get. 

Candy Cane Lane may be marketed around a streets annual Christmas decoration competition that Murphy’s family man Chris Carver is determined to win finally but once he meets Jillian Bell’s mysterious Pepper and the 12 Days of Christmas tale becomes all too real, Reginald Hudlin’s feature isn’t afraid to dive headfirst into the wild and wacky with shrunken humans, excessive cows milk, wild birds and fights with marching bands taking over in a family film that never really seems the type of heartwarming family friendly comedy you’d expect it to be.

Coming off a lean patch with You People and Coming 2 America after what appeared to be a nice renaissance off the back of Dolemite is My Name in 2019, star Eddie Murphy may be more enthused than you’d expect playing it mostly straight, giving some more effort than his notoriously bad days in the early 2000’s with the likes of Dr. Dolittle 2, Pluto Nash and Daddy Day Care infesting our screens but not even his presence can stand-up to the oddness and bizarre antics of a film that never really comes to terms as a life affirming tale, an Elf-like X-mas comedy or a fantastical journey. 

Unsure of where to turn its focus too throughout its close to two hour running time, there’s undoubtedly the bones of a special yuletide tale somewhere in Hudlin’s offering but the end product of the Lane we get always feels like its battling itself and with Murphy acceptable if reigned in, none of the films supports that includes bit parts by talent such as Nick Offerman or Ken Marino or the big budgeted spectacle on display matters much when we barely get a chance to feel any magic, intrigue, fun or emotion as we fly from sequence to sequence. 

No one can accuse Lane of playing it safe, this is not your stereotypical family Christmas yarn with a tinge of the fanciful and there are likely to be a few that see this unashamedly bizarre affair but overall the entertainment value of this Prime original is mainly based around the fact the audience is anticipating what odd event is coming next without any sense of connection or investment.

Final Say – 

Far stranger than you’d likely suspect from its basic synopsis, Candy Cane Lane sees a dialled back Eddie Murphy outshone by a wild narrative that moves from place to place with casual abandon for any sense of following a particular pattern, creating a Christmas themed feature that is worth exploring purely on the fact it’s unafraid to embrace its strange nature. 

2 Pentatonix members out of 5