Prime Time: Candy Cane Lane (2023)

You know you're in trouble during the festive season when you start to focus on decorations and competition against what others deem to be the true value of Christmas. Well, maybe you don't know it, but you will soon enough. Especially if you're a character in a Christmas movie.

Eddie Murphy is Chris Carver, a man who decides to put all of his time and energy into winning a neighbourhood Christmas decorating contest in order to win a prize that will make him feel much more secure after recently being laid off from his work. Chris has a loving and supportive wife, Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross), an athletic daughter (Joy, played by Genneya Walton) who wants to keeps butting heads with her folks when it comes to deciding on the next venue for her further education, a musical son (Nick, played by Thaddeus J. Mixson) who isn't doing so well in his maths class, and young Holly (Madison Thomas), a little girl who just seems to want everyone to have the cheer and happiness that she has in her life. The whole family has to work together when Chris inadvertently signs himself up for a Christmas-themed challenge set by a mischievous elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell) that would see him turned into a small Christmas ornament if he loses.

Written by a relative newcomer, Kelly Younger (who, before this, only has a couple of muppet projects in his screenplay portfolio), this is a high-concept film that looks to have a bigger budget than your average Christmas movie, judging by the CGI used throughout. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t work better, with the highlights jostling alongside mediocrity in a narrative that never seems to flow or build any real sense of momentum.

Director Reginald Hudlin may have spent most of the last few decades working on various TV shows, but he’s a very capable pair of hands, and he shows good instincts in the main sequences that show the various members of the Carver family playing to their individual strengths.

Murphy does okay in a lead role that fails to let him shine, he has to be the dad/husband learning important lessons and he does well enough with that. Ross has less to do, but steps up to the mark when it is her turn to give everyone a supportive shake. As for the younger family members, each one is kept in their respective character trait pigeonhole. Thomas has to be sweet, and she is. Walton has to show her character is a fast runner, and determined to start becoming more independent, and she does. And Mixson gets to show off the musical talent that his parents don’t consider a serious endeavour worth focusing on. As for Bell, she is fun in a role that allows her to once again mix slight menace with her kookiness (there may be better words to use here, I don’t have the coffee or time to find them). Nick Offerman does a decent impression of a typically Dickensian character. And you get a cameo from Pentatonix, the a cappella group who seem to have made Christmas a firm fixture at the heart of their output.

While it has a polish and level of care trying to ensure that it supersedes the many films you get at this time of year from the likes of Hallmark and other companies who deliver annual servings of cosy comfort, Candy Cane Lane is actually on a par with a lot of them. It’s very tame stuff, very predictable, and very disposable. There are some other highlights, including a fun turn from Ken Marino, a couple of TV hosts who have very different styles, and an excellent cameo when we finally see a Santa, but they are not enough to make it worth rewatching. Like a lot of films you can find on almost every channel this month, this is an amusing distraction. Nothing more, nothing less.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Sleepover (2020)

Kevin (Maxwell Simkins) is having a bad day. He's been recorded on phone doing a funky dance in the bathroom at school, a video that's about to go viral. His sister, Clancy (Sadie Stanley), is also having a bad day. Their mother (Margot, played by Malin Åkerman) doesn't let them own phones, doesn't approve of social media, and isn't letting Clancy go to a great party with her friend, Mim (Cree Cicchino). Kevin is having a friend, Lewis (Lucas Jaye), sleep over, but things soon get crazy when their parents are whisked away by criminals to get involved with a robbery. It turns out that mum had a secret life before becoming a mum, a life that even her husband, Ron (Ken Marino), was unaware of. Margo is forced to work with her ex-boyfriend, Leo (Joe Manganiello), while the kids work together to save their parents.

A first feature script from Sarah Rothschild (well, a first to be made into a film anyway), The Sleepover is a lightweight bit of fun that is lifted above the level of average by a great cast. Director Trish Sie handles everything competently enough, moving from one unbelievable moment to the next with the right mix of laughs and zippy pacing to stop viewers from overthinking things and dismissing the entire film. It's not aiming to be a gritty drama, it's aiming to provide laughs for everyone.

Although the adults do good work here, with Ken Marino a highlight, as usual (especially in any scenes that have him being jealous of Manganiello), it's the kids who are the real stars here. Stanley is the main character when it comes to a personal journey, discovering the reality of her mother's life and why she has made their life a certain way, and she does good work in her role. Simkins is consistently hilarious, whether he's engaging in childishly fantastic lies or swaggering past adults with an air of confidence that he really shouldn't possess. Cicchino is enjoyably sassy and attempting to stay cool at all times, while Jaye is the polar opposite, having spent his life coddled by a mother who has warned him of the dangers of almost every situation he might ever find himself in. Åkerman convinces as the housewife/mother with a dangerous past, armed with a skillset that comes to the fore in the second half of the movie, and she's a great actress to set at the centre of things, always able to bring a mix of toughness and sensitivity that has served her well in the few roles that use her in the best way.

There are no surprises here, even the one main twist is eye-rollingly obvious, and no punchlines that can't be predicted by set-ups dotted throughout most of the first half of the movie, but that's not a major problem when you're after something simple, light, and entertaining. Which this is. The worst moment may be a fight scene soundtracked by the song "I Want Candy" (faltering because it attempts to make some characters look cool in fighting mode while letting Marino continue to pratfall alongside them), but it's a small mis-step. The biggest problem the film has is that it is one in a long line of similar comedy-action-thrillers that we've seen over the last decade, a sub-genre that seems to be the perfect choice when streaming services look for extra content.

7/10

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Bad Milo! (2013)

Bad Milo! is a lot of fun, I guess, but it's also yet another movie that seems to have been embraced by fans for reasons that I can't quite fathom. It's amusing, diverting stuff that benefits from solid performances, but *whisper it* it's not THAT good. Not really. Admit it. Or is it just me? Is it? Okay, maybe it's just me.

Ken Marino stars as Duncan, a man with a severe case of tummy trouble. As he gets more anxious and stressed he ends up spending more time on the toilet. It turns out that these bathroom visits are so strenuous, and leave him (sometimes waking up the next morning from the bathroom floor) so relieved, because he has a little creature living inside his body. A creature that pops out to deal with anyone who causes Duncan too much stress. And, with the people around him including a horrible boss (Patrick Warburton), a fairly inept work colleague or two and some interfering doctors, there's plenty to motivate Milo to come out of hiding.

Directed by Jacob Vaughan, who also co-wrote the movie with Benjamin Hayes, Bad Milo! simply ends up stumbling because it doesn't ever commit to any one approach to the material. While it's pretty heavily indebted to Basket Case it never embraces the craziness of the premise in the way that Henenlotter would. Of course, few people are as brilliantly barmy as Henenlotter, so if the film isn't quite as crazy as it could be then there are other ways in which it can impress. Sadly, it doesn't. The few gore gags are okay, but the rest of the humour is neither sharp or abundant enough to make this a really enjoyable experience.

The cast all do a good job, however, and Marino is particularly good in the lead role. Peter Stormare is the kindly doctor who tries to make Duncan and Milo develop a more harmonious relationship, Warburton puts in yet another great performance (the guy never really lets me down), Gillian Jacobs is Duncan's loving partner, Sarah, and there are good little supporting turns from Mary Kay Place, Kumail Nanjiani, Toby Huss, Steve Zissis and Stephen Root. And, despite my disappointment with the film, I have to admit that everyone involved does an admirable job of keeping a straight face.

If you're a fan of offbeat comedies or warped body horror fare then, judging by the reactions of others, you're likely to enjoy Bad Milo! a bit more than I did. I enjoyed it, and I wouldn't rule out giving it a rewatch one day, but I just didn't think it was anything great.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Milo-Blu-ray-Ken-Marino/dp/B00FYL087K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1391375702&sr=8-3&keywords=bad+milo