The instantly forgettable Eddie Murphy movie inspired by Sam Raimi: “Let’s go for it”
With any Eddie Murphy movie, you’re taking a big risk. Sometimes, you get a Beverly Hills Cop or a Coming to America, a masterclass in comedic acting with some of the most memorable, hilarious scenes you’ll ever find in a movie. However, on other occasions, you get The Adventures of Pluto Nash or Norbit, a miserable cesspool of a movie that’s about as funny as finding a human finger in your Happy Meal.
As well as these extremes, sometimes Murphy will star in a film that will leave you feeling totally numb. Not good, not bad, just sort of there. One of these is in Candy Cane Lane, a Christmas film the actor made for Amazon Prime in 2023. He plays the yule-obsessed father of a family of five who, after being tricked by a wicked elf, comes into possession of some cursed decorations.
The movie is utterly dreadful, not helped by Murphy sleepwalking through most of the scenes. It’s 100% a paycheque performance from him and he’s not even trying to hide it. This makes it all the more surprising that the project was supposedly inspired by one of the more bizarre cinematic offerings from the same year, as director Reginald Hudlin told Collider whilst promoting the film.
Hudlin, who had previously worked with Murphy on the movie Boomerang, explained that he didn’t want the scenes featuring a collection of living glass ornaments to look too realistic. “I’m really inspired by Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and that Rankin/Bass-style animation,” he said. “There’s a lot of experimentation with that.” He then referenced some of the effects work in recent Marvel release Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which was directed by Sam Raimi. “He’s a big stop motion fan,” Hudlin said of Raimi. “He did a version of it that was really inspirational to me, so I said, ‘No, it’s gonna work guys. Let’s go for it.’ And I think they nailed it.”
It’s not entirely clear what Hudlin is referring to here, as Multiverse of Madness doesn’t contain any stop motion. The ‘Evil Dead’ made use of miniatures to achieve certain effects on a low budget, but Raimi had no such money troubles with Disney’s backing. As for Rankin/Bass, they were an American production company who specialised in stop motion. Their best-known work includes various Christmas films based on Frosty the Snowman and the aforementioned Rudolph and two TV specials based on the works of J. R. R. Tolkein.
The effects on Candy Cane Lane were handled by Industrial Light & Magic, the legendary company that helped bring the original ‘Star Wars’ films to life and are considered the very best of the best. Unfortunately, this was far from their greatest achievement, as the animation they produced looks cheap and off-putting, unlike the stunning visuals in the Marvel film. Critics cited overuse of special effects as one of the movie’s main issues, as well as its lacklustre performances and nonsensical plot.
Candy Cane Lane might have been a disaster, but it’s always interesting to see where directors get their ideas. The fact that Hudlin was able to look at a film about a dimension-hopping wizard and come up with a premise for his movie about talking Christmas decorations speaks volumes to his creativity, even if the finished product wasn’t quite what he was hoping for.
