While I don’t think Reginald Hudlin’s “Candy Cane Lane” is the next “It’s a Wonderful Life,” it is an amiable, inventive, fun-filled Christmas-themed effort featuring the great Eddie Murphy and Tracee Ellis Ross. These two very big talents play Chris and Carol Carver, a married-with-children couple, who live on El Segundo’s Candy Cane Lane and engage in a competitive best Christmas display contest.

Chris and Carol desperately want their older daughter Joy (Genneya Walton) to attend Chris’s alma mater USC. She wants to attend Notre Dame to get a bit farther away. Chris and Carol are not sure what to make of son and music buff Nick (Thaddeus J. Mixson) or his interest in the tuba.

As his name suggests, Chris Carver has as usual completed several hand-carved decorations for his family’s front yard. He scoffs at Bruce (Ken Marino), his neighbor across the street who is partial to tacky, giant blow-up Christmas figures. In search of more decorations, Chris, who has just been laid off, and his youngest child Holly (a talented Madison Thomas) come across a mysterious “pop-up” called “Kringle’s.” The salesperson in this strange store is named Pepper (the gifted Jillian Bell).

Cue Nat King Cole. No offense to the screenplay by Kelly Younger (“Muppets Haunted Mansion”), but Murphy could make Netflix’s new Terms of Agreement sound funny. His comic timing remains phenomenal. Pepper turns out to be a rogue elf who was expelled from the North Pole. She suggests that she and Holly take an “Elfie.” She recommends that Chris purchase the “12 Days of Christmas tree,” a towering pole covered in spinning ornaments. At the shop, Chris and Holly discover a tiny Christmas figure named Pip (Nick Offerman) and several others, who are alive and can talk and were transformed and held captive by Pepper.

Two local cable TV personalities named Kit (Danielle Pinnock) and Emerson (Timothy Simons) host a TV show paying $100,000 to the winner of the best Christmas display on Candy Cane Lane, and Chris desperately needs the money. Of course, there’s a catch. If Chris does not find the five golden rings of the “12 Days of Christmas” song before a certain time, he too will be turned into a tiny figure by Pepper and join the others at Kringle’s.

Among these are Gary the Lamplighter (Chris Redd), who develops a naughty crush on Carol and the beautiful Cordelia (Robin Thede), who seems like a lost Charles Dickens’ heroine. A lot of the fun in “Candy Cane Lane” is in the details. One of Chris and Carol’s neighbors has created a “Matrix”-inspired Christmas display. The screenplay itself has a very “Twilight Zone” vibe. Some creatures depicted on the Christmas pole come alive and go after Carol at work, where she is up for a promotion.

“Candy Cane Lane” could have easily gone sideways in other hands. But the producers, including Academy Award-winner Brian Grazer (“A Beautiful Mind”) and Murphy, director Hudlin and writer Younger keep it from careening off the rails. Murphy and Ross make a fun couple, and Bell as the elf-gone-wrong holds her own with screen legend Murphy, which is saying something. Stick around to meet the film’s sharp-dressing Santa Claus. While “Candy Cane Lane” is not going to replace “Rare Exports” as my favorite modern Christmas movie, it’s not bad.

(“Candy Cane Lane” contains off-color and suggestive language)

“Candy Cane Lane”

Rated PG. On Amazon Prime. Grade: B+