A Batalha de Natal

Candy Cane Lane is on the less offensive side of Christmas movie releases but suffers from being far too long at an energy draining two hours. Just when it starts wrapping up another 30 minutes come from nowhere.

Eddie Murphy carries the movie and helps to push it over the line. It is a step up from his previous Amazon Original, Coming 2 America. Jillian Bell is annoying as always but fits in better in this zany christmas movie.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but Candy Cane Lane passes the time and is at least better than the 50 Hallmark exclusive movies which are soon coming down the pike.

I'm surprised some reviewers thought this movie was vulgar. I thought it was the first movie I've seen in a long time, directed towards children, that did not have crude remarks and events. (Adam Sandler obviously had nothing to do with making it.) Yes, it does have some obscene words and a few inuendos, but nothing like most movies these days.

The movie's main strength lies in the relationships between the very likable family members. Two of the three kids are teenagers wanting to do their own thing, while the parents, especially Dad, think they know what's best for them. Thankfully, there are no gender issues or other politically correct stuff stuffed into this film. A pleasant surprise for an Amazon movie!

The kids are normal, the parents are normal, family life is normal, until it is not. There's lots of amusing lines and events in the film, but the humor is not that consistant. That's the biggest fault of the story. The evil elf is also neither funny nor scary most of the time. She is mostly irritating. The Christmas breakfast was an anticlimatic ending, too, and we really could have done without the "lady mallard".

In fact, that poor duck, as well as having all the birds in the film as villians, made me take off a couple stars. The Santa in the movie was one of the fun parts, but the funniest line involving him was not in the film itself. When the credits run, watch out for scenes not in the story, the funniest one being what Eddie Murphy says to the Santa.

Wow... So Eddie Murphy delivers his second Amazon Movie and his first Christmas themed movie and as a huge Fan of his I can say I'm absolutely disappointed.

The movie starts of promising and seems to build up to original ideas, but only goes downhill as soon as the story starts to evolve. Sadly it's a absolute mess and they tried to cram so much into the movie that it's hard to keep track sometimes. The movie lacks depth and characters fight just to reconcile 1 minute later. The movie jumps from scene to scene and every moment of depth conflict or drama is resolved within a max of 3 minutes. There's not one scene that really made me laugh and the movie is so exhausting at times that i really struggled not to turn it off. I don't know what Eddie was thinking but this feels soulless and you can see it on the actors faces and their energy. Everyone seems bored, the dialogue's are hideous and nothing clicks... this is really disappointing and falls in the category of the Eddie Murphy movies that will be forgotten sooner than later.

I wish it was better. The movie has a great look and a great leading cast with Eddie Murphy and Julian Bell. Unfortunately only Julian Bell was funny. I only laughed during her scenes.

I think the issue was the story. It wasn't very good and it was boring. I really didn't care what the problem was or what Eddie Murphy was trying to accomplish. The live coverage of Candy Cane lane made no sense and the reporters were terrible actors. The news coverage came out of no where. The movie was a mix of a bunch of bad parts and recycled stories. If it's going to recycle a story it needs to be as good as the original or better. I don't ever want to see this movie again.

Why the low ratings? This is such a fun family holiday movie. Don't sleep on the adorable end credit scene. This was such an original movie-not like the cookie cutter predictable ones we are all used to. Eddie Murphy is a delight and tracee Ellis Ross is wonderful. I thought it was entertaining and enjoyable. If you want a comedic, colorful Christmas movie, you'll enjoy this. I also enjoyed the representation and inclusion aspect of the movie as well. All around, really lovely family movie. Definitely worth the watch. Much better than family switch on Netflix-woof! Happy holidays, everyone! And a happy new year.