'Tis the season for all of the streaming services to release a glut of holiday-themed movies; so much so that the same-ness of them all can dampen your Christmas spirit. Thankfully, a new Eddie Murphy comedy has managed to break that trend and deliver something very different... though not everyone can agree on whether that's good or bad.
This new movie is Candy Cane Lane, an original movie from Prime Video which was released on Friday, December 1 of this year.
Candy Cane Lane centers on Murphy's Chris, a man who routinely loses his neighborhood's Christmas decorating contest, who needs the prize fund more than ever after being fired from his job. Finally, he manages to win... after accidentally making a Faustian deal with an evil festive fairy.
Chris needs to fulfill a bizarre task to avoid being turned into the same kind of glass figurine that he used to carve to compete in the decoration competition and to do so he has to battle magical creatures, befriend Santa and bond with this family a little too.
The movie has quite a wild plot for its two-hour runtime so that synopsis misses a few of the weird and wacky elements. Murphy stars alongside Tracee Ellis Ross and Jillian Bell, and comedy icons like Nick Offerman, Riki Lindhorne and Ken Marino show up in smaller roles.
Reception to the movie has been mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a 41% critics' score and a 43% audience score. Reviews call it "bizarro" (The Guardian) and "batty" (Variety), both words politely pointing to the weirdness of the premise compared to the by-the-numbers standard holiday fare we usually see.
Despite the middling reception, Candy Cane Lane has proven itself a big hit on hits home streaming service Prime Video. At the time of writing, it's sitting at the streamers' most-watched top-spot, and this is a ranking that includes both movies and TV shows, unlike Netflix which has two separate lists.
Murphy's movie beats recent Amazon Original shows like Invincible, Gen V and Mafia Mamma to that spot, as well as the likes of streamer hits The Boys and Reacher, all of which are lower in the Top 10 list.
Perhaps the movie's popularity speaks to its bizarreness and uniqueness, which are important traits given how packed the Christmas movie genre is with near-identical dramas. Certain movies, like Jingle All The Way with its Arnie vs Santa brawl or Deck The Halls with its madcap Danny Devito antics remain popular holiday watches decades after their release, due to them providing something a little different than what we normally get.
Will Candy Cane Lane prove a holiday classic in years to come? Well, that remains to be seen, but if you're sick of the same old festive movies that keep piling up streaming services' outputs, and want something a bit unique, maybe it's worth checking out.
