Laughing all the way with funny guy Eddie Murphy
The main thing to say about “Candy Cane Lane” is that Eddie Murphy is funny. And at any moment in which he’s being funny, he’s doing it in two ways: by being funny, and by reminding you of other times in which he’s been funny in a similar way.
When I was a kid, I’d see Jack Benny on TV doing stand-up, and he’d just have to look at the audience, and everyone would start laughing, because, by that point, his comic persona had been fixed in the public mind for decades. Murphy is in that place today. If “Candy Cane Lane” were his first film, audiences would still be laughing, but the fact that he has been around 40 years makes it even better.
We know the look Murphy gets when he’s nervous and pretending to be in control. We also know the look he gets when he’s scared and trying to act tough. Or when he’s guilty and pretending to be innocent. We have been laughing at Murphy’s comic turns for so long that the laughs are reinforcing each other, and that’s an ideal situation.
But Murphy’s not the only one who’s funny in “Candy Cane Lane.” Tracee Ellis Ross also carries some of the comedy, and her timing and sense of the absurd are first-rate. At one point, she does a business presentation while chickens are showing up magically, out of nowhere, and she has the task of incorporating the chickens into her presentation as though she meant for them to be there.
The story — and there’s a bit too much of one — revolves around a competition for the best decorated house at Christmastime. Chris (Murphy) is an obsessive who carves his own decorations, and he wants to win, especially
after he gets laid off from his job and finds out the contest has a $100,000 grand prize.
But surprisingly, the competition is not really the focus of the movie.
“Candy Cane Lane” is more concerned with an evil elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell), who turns people into Christmas figurines. Bell appears to have been directed into an extremely overacted performance, which has no comic subtlety, and the figurines want to escape from her, mostly because they want their old bodies back but perhaps partly because she’s just not funny.
To get figurines walking and talking requires special effects, and “Candy Cane Lane” relies
heavily on them, not only in the figurine scenes but throughout the movie. Clearly, the goal was to make a visually opulent Christmas movie, but these visuals end up sucking up much of the film’s life and spirit. It deemphasizes the human element, and it makes the movie too long. If you’re going to spend all that money on CGI, there’s a temptation to put it all onscreen.
In a theater, these flaws would matter considerably, because in a theater, unless you want to get up
and walk around, you’re stuck with the movie as is. But “Candy Cane Lane” is available to stream on Amazon Prime, so you can watch it at home in a way where you can use the extra time to check your email, do a crossword, make a sandwich, say the rosary … and then focus again every time Eddie Murphy is being funny.
Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes Rating PG (language throughout, some suggestive references)