Most Christmas movies suck. We know this. An eye-rolling romance here, a fabricated controversy there, and then Santa comes round to make it all better. A Christmas miracle. Of course, many people love these films for exactly those reasons, but that’s a different essay. Today, I have a nutty fruitcake of a Christmas movie that sucks for all sorts of new reasons. But I honestly can’t fault it for trying.
The film starts innocently enough, I guess. As the holidays approach, local household patriarch, Chris Carver (Eddie Murphy), shows us his priorities are not cool. That’s a standard Christmas opening, no? The Carvers live on Candy Cane Lane, a residential block in which the patrons go all out on Christmas decorations. Imagine a real-life Who-ville. Now imagine a contest with a valuable prize for the most festive castle. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you know a place or two where Christmas is a contest to be won.
Chris is, of course, jealous that his cross-the-street neighbor wins the prize every year. We are supposed to notice that Chris’ hand-made wooden designs are much prettier than the winning neighbor’s parade-balloon theme, but such doesn’t matter; craftsmanship will be forgotten in 3 … 2 … 1 …
Chris gets axed as part of a company downsizing just days before Christmas. I’m pretty sure this is a dick move anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Desperate for a win, the employment blue make Chris all the more obsessed with his house decorations and all the more vulnerable when he spies a mysterious Christmas-themed store in an abandoned and relatively hidden parking lot. The interior of the place looks like a Hallmark card threw up, and Chris is fascinated by two elements in the store: first, living/breathing/talking porcelain dolls in a tiny retro-themed Christmas town and, second, an enormous-yet-tacky tree-like-pyramid devoted to the theme of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”
Ulterior-motive-elf Pepper (Jillian Bell) sells Chris his wish list in exchange for his soul or whatever. Bottom line is Chris makes an unwitting bargain for the goods and will become a porcelain doll himself if he doesn’t track down five golden rings. He doesn’t realize this at first, and appears to have won the contest except the next day all the “12 Days” figurines come to life and depart. Some, apparently, have rings.
This is all very confusing to explain. Basically, this Christmas movie becomes a ring hunt with targets who fight back. I’m sure it made perfect sense to whomever wrote this silliness. Or equally as much sense as Notre Dame sending a scout to a run-of-the-mill high school track meet taking place in late December ?! Colleges have track scouts? Who don’t just watch video tape or get email/phone confirmation? Who show up on Christmas Eve thousands of miles from their own homes?
Apologies, if I quibble too long here, I have to quibble with everything. This is a film with very poor research.
The biggest problem with Candy Cane Lane is that I honestly think the producers thought they had a winner. Here’s a unique Christmas film which doesn’t rely on an unlikely romance or the deus-ex-machina magic of the holiday to make things right. People lov
e a treasure hunt, right? Well, here’s a treasure for your soul. Good luck. Add a name or two – Eddie Murphy, Jillian Bell (I love Jillian Bell). David Alan Grier is Santa. Nick Offerman and Chris Redd voice porcelain dolls. (We love all those guys, right?) Then wrap it up in a big moment of family togetherness and an understanding of true meaning of Christmas and everyone is happy and the film is a winner. What could go wrong?
Wouldn’t it be great if that’s how things really worked? In reality, Candy Cane Lane didn’t offer much besides chaos. Chris and fam spend so much energy tracking down rings that we don’t really care about their individual plights. Does Chris learn the true meaning of Christmas? Hell if I know; THERE’S A RING!! And why one needs to combat leaping lords, drumming drummers, or explosive cow udders wielded by milking maidens is beyond me. And, sadly, this is the worst performance I’ve ever seen out of Jillian Bell, who did nothing for me as the evil elf doll collector. Bottom line is a lot of energy went into this film just to come out with the standard conclusion of “closed man finally understands importance of Christmas.” Big whoop.
I will give you points, Candy Cane Lane, for the energy expended and the diversity of your cast, but it’s not easy to enjoy much else about this whirlwind exploration of one of the worst Christmas songs ever written.
Once a man entered a store called “Kringle”
In an attempt to get more jangle for his jingle
The results, for he
Christmas insanity
He’s lucky his current status isn’t “single”
Rated PG, 117 Minutes
Director: Reginald Hudlin
Writer: Kelly Younger
Genre: CHRISTMAS!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Are you on some sort of controlled substance?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “The Twelve Days of Christmas is a really stupid song”
