Metacritic-Rezensionen

A holiday film full of creativity, family, and fun, Hudlin’s Candy Cane Lane is a Christmas gift worth watching. Led by a talented leading duo, this adventure could be your next guilty pleasure.

This unholy concoction of ideas is unlikely to become a seasonal staple, but sift through the nonsense and there’s a surprising amount to enjoy in this bonkers Noel nightmare.

If you are looking for a light and fluffy holiday movie that you can stream with the whole family while sipping on some spiked eggnog, you can do a whole lot worse than Candy Cane Lane.

I realize writing a new Christmas screenplay can’t be easy; to get made, it must check a certain number of predictable boxes. Murphy is game, but only in a few moments with Ross — small-talk scenes not dependent on forced wonderment or reaction-shot gaping — do they appear to relax and enjoy the company.

Murray occasionally shows flashes of his comic genius, but only flashes.

Candy Cane Lane is harmless but teeters on the brink of being quite terrible.

You want to see Eddie Murphy surrounded by some Christmas-themed silliness. And on that score, it’s fine enough, but destined for regifting.

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 de-emphasizes the human element, and it makes the movie too long.

The bizarro plot might help Candy Cane Lane stand out from the bland, busy crowd of new seasonal movies but it’s just as limp and lacking in spirit as the rest of them. Murphy and Ross deserve better, and so do we, and so does Christmas.

When it comes to holiday movies, Candy Cane Lane isn’t at the very bottom of the pack, but it’s far from the top. . . The narrative careens through uncompelling territory before ending on a forgettable note.