The Mission (Movie)

Holiday fare arrives, with “Candy Cane Lane,” and “Dr. Who” and “Shape Island” specials. “Percy Jackson” and “Culprits” also land this month.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of December’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Candy Cane Lane’Starts streaming: Dec. 1Eddie Murphy reunites with his “Boomerang” director Reginald Hudlin for this fantastical, special-effects-driven holiday comedy. Murphy plays Chris Carver, a suburbanite whose obsession with winning his neighborhood’s lights and display contest leads to him making a deal with a malevolent elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell), who secretly plans to trap her new client permanently in the form of a plastic figurine. When Pepper’s dark magic leads to every gift in the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” coming to life and wreaking havoc in the Carver family’s quaint community, Chris and his wife, Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross), have to enlist their children and Pepper’s previous victims to try and prevent the spell from ruining Christmas.‘Reacher’ Season 2Starts streaming: Dec. 15Alan Ritchson returns as the hulking, nomadic ex-military policeman Jack Reacher, for a second season of mystery-unraveling and bone crunching. This batch of episodes is based on Lee Child’s novel “Bad Luck and Trouble,” and sees the beefy do-gooder calling on some old colleagues — Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan) and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) — to help him figure out who is killing the members of Reacher’s former U.S. Army MP Special Investigations unit. As with Season 1, this latest round of “Reacher” combines fisticuffs and shootouts with scenes of friends and strangers alike marveling at the eccentricities and capabilities of the stoic hero.Also arriving:Dec. 6“Hollywood Houselift With Jeff Lewis” Season 2Dec. 7“Coach Prime” Season 2Dec. 8“Merry Little Batman”Dec. 12“The Farads” Season 1Circle (voiced by Gideon Adlon), Square (voiced by Harvey Guillen) and Triangle (voiced by Scott Adsit) in “Shape Island: The Winter Blues,” a holiday special.Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Shape Island: The Winter Blues’Starts streaming: Dec. 1Based on a series of picture books by the author Mac Barnett and the illustrator Jon Klassen, the charming animated series “Shape Island” teaches young kids about friendship via quiet, simple stories about three very different shapes: the nerdy Square (voiced by Harvey Guillén), the goofy Triangle (Scott Adsit) and the cool and wise Circle (Gideon Adlon). In the holiday special “The Winter Blues,” Circle and Triangle try to cheer Square up by inventing a monster-themed holiday; but they struggle to maintain the illusion when their pal starts asking too many questions about the magical yeti they created. The show’s adorable sets and characters look even more enchanting covered in ice and snow, though as always the core appeal is the interactions between these three, who reap the rewards of companionship by making an extra effort to get along.Also arriving:Dec. 1“Frog and Toad: Christmas Eve”“The Snoopy Show: Happiness Is Holiday Traditions”Dec. 6“John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial”Dec. 15“The Family Plan”From left: Leah Sava Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri and Walker Scobell in “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.”Disney+New to Disney+“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Season 1Starts streaming: Dec. 20A decade ago, when pretty much every popular young adult fantasy fiction series was being adapted into megahit movies, the first two books in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson saga hit the big screen. Both did OK with audiences, but neither became a sensation on the level of the Harry Potter or Hunger Games films. So Riordan and the writer-producer Jonathan E. Steinberg are now trying something different with the novels, starting over at the beginning and telling Percy’s story as a Disney+ TV show. Walker Scobell plays the young hero, who discovers he is the secret son of Poseidon. Percy joins forces with other gods, demigods and magical creatures for adventures that bring the perils of ancient myths into the modern world.“Doctor Who Holiday Special: The Church on Ruby Road”Starts streaming: Dec. 25For the 60th anniversary of the long-running British science-fiction series “Doctor Who,” the show’s former writer-producer Russell T Davies is overseeing a series of specials that feature — for a brief stretch — the return of the actor David Tennant, playing a new version of the time-traveling Doctor he had previously played from 2005 to 2010. Disney+ will be carrying all three of those specials (“The Star Beast,” “Wild Blue Yonder” and “The Giggle”); and then with that nostalgia trip out of the way, Davies will begin the new “Doctor Who” season with a holiday-themed special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” which will properly introduce the next Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa. Details about what Davies has planned are being kept under wraps for now; but fans of the franchise are looking forward to some of the series’ biggest changes in years.Also arriving:Dec. 1“The Shepherd”Dec. 2“Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder”Dec. 8“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Christmas Cabin Fever”Dec. 9“Doctor Who: The Giggle”Dec. 22“What If…?” Season 2From left: Tara Abboud, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Gemma Arterton and Kirby in “Culprits.”Des Willie/DisneyNew to Hulu‘Culprits’ Season 1Starts streaming: Dec. 8The writer-director J Blakeson — best-known for the clever thriller films “The Disappearance of Alice Creed” and “I Care a Lot” — adapts the crime fiction anthology “Culprits: The Heist Was Just the Beginning” into a pulpy, structurally complex series, set in the aftermath of a caper. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett plays an aspiring restaurateur who is living a peaceful life with his fiancé when he discovers that someone is trying to kill everyone who was involved in a heist he participated in years ago. Each “Culprits” episode jumps between the present day and the past, filling in the details about the original crime, which was masterminded by a hyper-controlling boss (Gemma Arterton). The show is partly a mystery and partly a character study, considering the long-term effects of a criminal gang’s big score.‘The Mission’Starts streaming: Dec. 8Back in 2018, the Christian missionary John Allen Chau made international news when he was killed while illegally trying to make contact with a secluded island tribe. The National Geographic documentary “The Mission” digs beneath all the online jokes and outraged reactions to Chau’s death, offering a more thoughtful reflection on who this young man was — and a more detailed consideration of how the drive to convert hostile strangers has had a long and often tragic history. The film’s co-directors, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (who previously made the excellent documentary “Boys State”), bring a fair-minded approach throughout, taking fervent faith seriously while also acknowledging the damage it can do.Also arriving:Dec. 6“We Live Here: The Midwest”Dec. 9“Maestra”Dec. 11“Science Fair: The Series”Dec. 13“Moving” Season 1“Undead Unlock” Season 1Dec. 14“Blue Jean”“Dragons: The Nine Realms” Season 8Dec. 15“CMA Country Christmas”“Such Brave Girls” Season 1Dec. 18“Archer: Into the Cold”Dec. 20“Dragons of Wonderhatch” Season 1Dec. 22“Maggie Moore(s)”Dec. 26“Letterkenny” Season 12Carol and Charles Stuart, as seen in “Murder In Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning.” Ira Wyman/Sygma via Getty Images/HBONew to Max‘Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning’Starts streaming: Dec. 4In 1989, a woman named Carol Stuart was shot and killed in Boston. During the investigation into the murder, her husband, Chuck, described the shooter as a Black man. It was later discovered that he wasn’t being entirely truthful; but by the time the case was closed, the city’s long-simmering racial hostilities had boiled over. Directed by Jason Hehir (best-known for the Emmy-winning Chicago Bulls docu-series “The Last Dance”), the three-part “Murder in Boston” features archival news footage and new interviews that, working in conjunction, explain what the cultural environment was like in Boston in the 1970s and ’80s and how the Stuart case represented a turning point.Also arriving:Dec. 5“Great Photo, Lovely Life: Facing a Family’s Secrets”Dec. 12“Trees and Other Entanglements”Dec. 16“Leo Reich: Literally Who Cares?”Dec. 21“Gary Gulman: Born on 3rd Base”Dec. 28“Oprah and ‘The Color Purple’ Journey”Dec. 30“Time Bomb Y2K”Michael Jackson, center, in the documentary “Thriller 40.” Paramount+ with SHOWTIMENew to Paramount+ with Showtime‘Thriller 40’Starts streaming: Dec. 2The director Nelson George’s “Thriller 40” goes deep on one of the best-selling albums of all time, serving as an unofficial conclusion to a trilogy that was begun by Spike Lee’s two Michael Jackson documentaries (one about the years leading up to “Off the Wall,” and one about the making of “Bad”). George and his crew interview some of the personnel who worked on the “Thriller” LP and its groundbreaking music videos; and they also speak with some famous fans (including Usher, Misty Copeland, Mark Ronson and Mary J. Blige), who talk passionately about what “Thriller” means to them. The main selling point for this documentary, though, is all of the rare video and audio from the studio, where Jackson and his producer Quincy Jones shaped the songs that would go on to dominate the pop charts, expanding the commercial and creative possibilities for Black artists.Also arriving:Dec. 1“The World According to Football”Dec. 5“Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?”Dec. 7“The Envoys” Season 2Dec. 8“Baby Shark’s Big Movie”Dec. 11“The Billion Dollar Goal”Dec. 12“Born in Synanon”Dec. 15“Finestkind”Tony Shalhoub returns as Adrian Monk in “Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie.”Peter Stranks/PEACOCKNew to Peacock‘Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie’Starts streaming: Dec. 8Fourteen years after the USA Network’s long-running, Emmy-winning detective dramedy “Monk” aired its series finale, most of the cast returns for this sequel movie, which catches fans up on how the obsessive-compulsive sleuth Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) has been doing in the decade since he finally solved his wife’s murder. In short? Not great! Rattled by the pandemic and feeling adrift without murders to investigate, Monk finds a renewed sense of purpose when someone close to his family dies under mysterious circumstances, possibly at the direction of an arrogant billionaire (James Purefoy). In “Mr. Monk’s Last Case,” Monk once again has to overcome his neuroses with the help of his friends and former colleagues, working together to make the world feel a little saner.Also arriving:Dec. 1“The Exorcist: Believer”Dec. 8“Christmas at the Opry”Dec. 12“Barry Manilow’s a Very Barry Christmas”Dec. 15“A Saturday Night Live Christmas Special”Dec. 21“Dr. Death” Season 2 More