The Review: Candy Cane Lane

 

Candy Cane Lane 6/10

Another holiday movie that we watched was Candy Cane Lane. This was an okay movie but it just felt a little bit too long and as if there were way too many stories going on at the same time. It's about this guy named Chris Carver who likes to make his own decorations for the holidays. His neighborhood goes crazy when it's time for Christmas and the entire street is decked out. He ends up going into work and laid off right before the holidays like a lot of these movies do because everybody has a horrible boss. He also finds out that this year that there will be a prize of $100,000 for whoever wins the best decorations on the street. He also has three kids with his wife. His youngest daughter is named Holly and she's the light skin child of this movie. I bet you I thought I was joking, but every one of these movies no matter what the couple looks like there's going to be a little curly hair light skinned child as the daughter. He also has two other kids with holiday themed names. His son Nick plays a tuba and wants to make music but they want him to do something else. And their daughter Joy is a track runner and they want her to go to USC but she does not want to.

The same day that Chris gets fired his wife ends up getting a promotion. One day while driving around for decorations Chris and his youngest daughter end up finding this weird little magical Christmas store underneath the freeway overpass. They go inside and I was confused as to why he was spending so much money on these Christmas decorations knowing he just lost his job. As someone who has lost jobs and has quit jobs one of the first things you start thinking about is what can I cut back on so that I am not poor anymore? So he and his daughter end up getting these crazy decorations after meeting this insane ass elf named Pepper. Next thing you know the damn ornaments are coming to life and there's geese and swans flying around. Chris starts to go back to the shop and they see that there are these living Christmas village people in there. It turns out that they made a wish and signed a contract the same way Chris did and when they couldn't fulfill the contract made by Pepper they were turned into these village folk. The movie had some funny parts but seem to drag out more than it needed to. I wasn't really all that interested in what college the daughter was going to go to and was not impressed with the music that the son played. The youngest daughter is just the youngest daughter there is nothing special about her except that she really likes Christmas.

One of the things I did think was cool was when Santa did show up and he had a cool ass sleigh. I actually would have liked to see more Santa in this movie. And as I sit here and think about it it would be pretty jacked up to end up turning into a living toy. That would actually be horrifying. I don't think this movie leaned as much as it should have into that aspect and what life as a living toy would have been. I'm not saying that this needed to be a horror film or anything but even when the family sees him turn into this tiny toy former human my reaction wouldn't be “Oh no what are we going to do?!” I would have been running down the street screaming if I saw somebody I know turned into a doll. I also would have appreciated at least a flashback scene of these village characters in human form before they became a doll showing what happened. Because there's certain scenes where they spend a lot of time on something like the daughters track meet for example. If they had taken maybe two or three minutes and just shown this group of village people in human form it would have made me more sympathetic towards them and cared more about their story. What ends up happening is that they become humans again and I'm just confused as to how they're going to live their lives now. Especially the one guy named Pip who seem to have lived a hundred years ago and what's he going to do. I don't think I would watch this film again especially considering that it was two hours long and didn't need to be. But it's not a bad film.

Eddie Murphy as Chris Carver

Tracee Ellis Ross as Carol Carver

Jillian Bell as Pepper

Genneya Walton as Joy Carver

Thaddeus J. Mixson as Nick Carver

Nick Offerman as Pip

Chris Redd as Lamplighter Gary

Robin Thede as Cordelia

David Alan Grier as Santa Claus

Timothy Simons as Emerson

Danielle Pinnock as Kit

Iman Benson as Selah

Trevante Rhodes as Tre

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