Nativity 3: Dude, Where’S My Donkey?
Director: Debbie Isitt
Starring: Susie Blake, Martin Clunes, Adam Garcia
109 mins; Class U;
Eden Cinemas Release

This is a week of sequels, with this, the third in the Nativity series. Nativity 3 – Dude Where’s My Donkey? finds the pupils of St Bernadette’s Primary School heading off into yet another chaotic adventure initiated by teacher’s assistant, Mr Poppy (Marc Wootton), who would have been fired ages ago if this were real life (or jailed, if it were up to me).

The original Nativity took place in Coventry; its sequel took the pupils to Wales and this third – and hopefully final – instalment sees the implausible storyline taking the children to London from Birmingham, and eventually to New York where their new teacher Mr Shepherd (Martin Clunes) is set to wed his fiancée Sophie (Catherine Tate), much to the delight of his young daughter Lauren (Lauren Hobbs). However, a freak accident causes Mr Shepherd to lose his memory and, with no idea who he is and recognising neither Lauren nor Sophie, the meddling Mr Poppy embarks on a quest to help Shepherd get his memory back… while fulfilling his dream of winning a Flash Mob contest with a trip to New York as the prize.

I struggled to find a single redeeming feature

I hate to be all Grinch-like and mean and nasty to a film that is squarely aimed at the under-fives, especially now we are approaching the festive season, but truth be told I struggled to find a single redeeming feature here in this poor seasonal entry.

The lame premise is stretched to breaking point, and does nothing more than offer the film-makers the opportunity to forego plot and character development completely, merely to indulge in a series of flash mob numbers.

As for the characters, in Martin Freeman and David Tennant, Nativities 1 and 2 had characters that were quite three-dimensional with some real issues adults in the audience could engage with in the midst of all madness.

But all writer/director Debbie Isitt seems concerned with here, are the antics that Wootton’s Mr Poppy gets up to… and he just is not as funny as he thinks he is.

He starts off as merely annoying, gets progressively worse and by the time the final scene unfolds and he is dancing in a gigantic, white pig costume, the character is completely off-putting. It says plenty that the titular donkey, Archie, is much less asinine.

It’s hard to feel much for Martin Clunes’s Mr Shepherd, whose amnesia gets boring after a few scenes. Catherine Tate plays it unusually straight as the fiancée who hasn’t a clue what is going on. Oh for a mere five minutes of her typical humour – it would have enlivened proceedings remarkably.

Adam Garcia hams it up considerably as flash mob guru and Sophie’s ex-fiancé Bradley Fitch.

The film’s tiny saving grace are the kids, who manage to project some authentic cuteness and delight.