Candy Cane Lane Continues Eddie Murphy's Rotten Streak

Critics took a trip down Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy — and the consensus is the Christmas comedy is no holiday treat. The movie, released on Amazon Prime Video on December 1, has a 40% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes. That's on par with Murphy's other streaming comedy this year, Netflix's You People at 41%, and below his decades-later sequel Coming 2 America at 49%. The comedian has been on a rotten streak since his critically acclaimed comeback in 2019's Dolemite Is My Name, Murphy's highest-rated movie ever on Rotten Tomatoes that earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Murphy stars in the PG-rated holiday movie as Chris, a Christmas-crazed man on a mission to win his neighborhood's annual Christmas home decoration contest and its $100,000 prize. After Chris inadvertently makes a deal with a mischievous elf named Pepper (Good Burger 2's Jillian Bell) to better his chances of winning, she casts a magic spell that brings the 12 Days of Christmas to life, and wreaks havoc on the whole town. At the risk of ruining the holidays for his family, Chris, his wife Carol (Black-ish's Tracee Ellis Ross), and their three children — Joy (Genneya Walton), Nick (Thaddeus J. Mixson), and Holly (Madison Thomas) — must race against the clock to break Pepper's spell, battle deviously magical characters, and save Christmas for everyone.

"I wouldn't call Candy Cane Lane one of Murphy's good comedies; it's too long, too jammed together, and beneath it all too Christmas cookie cutter. Yet Murphy inhabits the role of a doting dad who lives for Christmas with reassuring ease," writes Variety's Owen Gleiberman. "Candy Cane Lane shows you that the Christmas movie as we've known it may be all used up, and that it has now entered its anything-goes surrealist phrase. 'Tis the season to be batty."

CNN critic Brian Lowry called Candy Cane Lane "a basic, indeed boring Christmas movie," comparing it to "a lightweight mix of Jingle All the Way and the ABC reality show The Great Christmas Light Fight" and "an exercise in holiday magic that barely musters a spark." A review from RogerEbert.com critic Marya E. Gates was more favorable, praising leading man Murphy as a "delight" in "the most delightfully deranged family film since The Nutcracker and the Four Realms." The review adds: "Regardless of its shortcomings, Candy Cane Lane is a frenzied family friendly film as overstuffed as a Christmas stocking, as nutty as a chestnut, and, ultimately, as warm as an open fire."

"The main thing to say about Candy Cane Lane is that Eddie Murphy is funny in it," reads a review from SF Chronicle's Mick LaSalle. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie 2 out of 4 stars, writing that the "tone-deaf" Christmas movie is "a stunningly uneven film that careens between cornball family drama, slapstick comedy and special-effects-laden gimmickry."

Candy Cane Lane is now streaming on Prime Video.