“It doesn’t feel magical, it feels terrifying” — A main character in “Candy Cane Lane,” commenting on the proceedings with pinpoint accuracy.
We are more than an hour deep into the tone-deaf, convoluted and profoundly unfunny family Christmas comedy “Candy Cane Lane” when the holiday movie train goes completely off the rails in a scene that defies description but I’m gonna try anyway. Ready?
Eddie Murphy’s Chris Carver and Tracee Ellis Ross’ Carol are in the stands at a high school track meet, rooting on their daughter Joy (Genneya Walton), who is hoping to impress the college scouts in the stands and land a scholarship. In the meantime, the Carvers’ son Nick (Thaddeus J. Mixson) is in the music room when he encounters a young woman milking a cow. She turns to him, says, “Got milk?” and then aims the cow’s udders at Nick, blasting him with a firehose-level spray of the white stuff.
Back on the track, Joy is killing it in a relay race when a flying, ninja-type warrior appears out of nowhere and sends her crashing to the ground. “You’ve got no drip!” exclaims the young man, who is soon joined by a phalanx of fellow warriors, all leaping about the track like Cirque du Soleil performers. Eventually, the entire lot of ‘em is vanquished — and when a warrior is defeated, he spins to the ground and is turned into inanimate, life-sized, wooden cutout.
After all this supernatural insanity, the Carver family approaches a scout in the stands, who completely ignores what has just happened and informs them Joy won’t be getting a scholarship offer: “I counted 20 violations and infractions.” What?! SIR, did you not just see what transpired out there? It was an earth-shattering, inexplicable, insanely unique moment, and you’re just shrugging it off and saying the kid isn’t getting a scholarship?
Somebody please hand me an eggnog, extra strong.
This is the kind of head-scratching madness that permeates “Candy Cane Lane.” In the name of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” It’s all well and fine to present a Christmas-themed story with elements of magic — but when characters in the film seem to ignore or brush off some mind-blowing developments, that’s just uninspired and incomplete storytelling right there.
Despite the presence of the veteran director Reginald Hudlin (who first teamed with Murphy in “Boomerang”) and the likable cast that includes some true star power in Murphy and Ross and a host of familiar character actors in supporting roles, “Candy Cane Lane” is harmless but teeters on the brink of being quite terrible.
Our fairy tale story is set in the town of El Segundo, California, in particular one neighborhood block where the locals go to extreme outdoor decorating lengths in an effort to win the annual Candy Cane Lane contest, which this year boasts a prize of some $100,000.
The Christmas-obsessed Chris (note that everyone in the family has a Christmas-y name) is especially determined to win the contest this year, seeing as how he has just been laid off from his job at Sydel Twain Industrial Plastics, so Chris and youngest daughter Holly (Madison Thomas) set off on a quest to find the perfect decorations — a quest that takes them to a suspiciously elaborate and permanent-looking “pop-up store” called “Kringle’s.”
Enter Jillian Bell’s Pepper Mint, a scorned elf who sells Chris the most amazing, magical “12 Days of Christmas”-themed tree you’ve ever seen — but the “receipt” is actually an airtight contract, and if Chris and his family can’t gain possession of, hold on here, FIVE GOLD RINGS before the designated deadline, he’ll be turned into a miniature ceramic figure and held captive by Pepper Mint in a Christmas Village display for all time.
In haphazard fashion, various lyrics from “The 12 Days of Christmas” come to life and try to thwart Chris and his family. Hence, that girl with the cow was representative of the Eight Maids a-Milking, and those ninja dancing fighter guys were Ten Lords a-Leaping, and on other occasions we encounter Seven Swans a-Swimming in the Carvers’ pool, and poor Carol is attacked by Six Geese a-Laying Eggs from the sky.
Nick Offerman, affecting the world’s worst British accent, is Pip, who has been trapped in a figurine, as have Chris Redd’s Gary and Robin Thede’s Cordelia. Perhaps if Chris can break the curse, he can save them as well!
“Candy Cane Lane” is a stunningly uneven film that careens between cornball family drama, slapstick comedy and special-effects-laden gimmickry. Sadly, the human characters come across as only slightly more dimensional than those wooden cutouts of the Ten Lords a-Leaping, and WHY WAS NOBODY AT THE TRACK MEET FREAKED OUT BY ANY OF THAT!
