Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey?!

Yes, this movie exists & yes, I had to watch it for you guys! You're welcome! Given that Nativity 2 made a bundle of money, a third movie was most definitely on the cards for the director who wanted to milk this overdone franchise until it was bone dry. And given the poor reception of the second film, it's also no surprise that the rest of the cast including Pam Ferris decided to jump ship, leaving only Marc Wooton's Mr Poppy & Jason Watkins' Gordon Shakespeare to be the only 2 characters from the first film to be in all 3 movies. But now that we have Martin Clunes filling in as the straight man & Catherine Tate as the love interest, will they be able to redeem the awfulness of the second film or will this be as annoying as shovelling donkey poo? Well...

Story: If you thought the second film was bad with contrivances, ridiculous scenarios & low quality writing, then oh boy, you ain't seen nothing yet with this piece of shit they call a story! This time, 'superteacher' Jeremy Shepherd (Martin Clunes) replaces Freeman & Tennant as the protagonist, who's soon to be married to Sophie (Catherine Tate) in New York. However, he loses his memory after being hit in the head by the now fired Mr Poppy's donkey & now they all go on a quest to find Shepherd's memories so he can marry his love in New York through a flashmob competition despite the new headmistress Mrs Keen waiting for an Ofsted inspector for the school (gee, I wonder who the inspector is). I think just from that summary alone, you can see why this is beyond awful! Not only is this poorly rehashed from the other movies, but the scenario of amnesia is the most cliched & asinine plot-line ever & all it does is make Martin Clunes an embarrassment. And what makes this even stupider is the fact that Mr Poppy abducts the kids (yet again) around Conventry, London & New York with not a single person noticing. Not the kids' parents, the staff or even the new headmistress (Celia Imrie) even when she clearly sees her some of her students in London at night (despite looking like it's school time in bloody Coventry) for a flashmob on a live stream! It's actually really uncomfortable thinking about that when it's supposed to be a feel-good family holiday movie & made me question why we're supposed to be rooting for him! Not only is there that gaping plot hole (or rather plot crater, they're that glaringly obvious), but the amnesia part is so inconsistent because not only does Shepherd forget his daughter, fiance/wedding & Christmas (apparently the biggest conflict in all the scenario), but also farts & escalators & yet in one scene can clearly remember how to drive a lawnmower when running away from one of Santa's elves! This is actually the kind of film where if anyone did what Poppy or Shepherd does in real life, they'd be arrested on the spot & the school would be closed down! Any attempts at 'emotion' also fall flat because of how artificial everything is & how none of the characters act like normal human beings (we'll get to that in a bit) & the resolution of how Shepherd's memories return (I don't care about hiding spoilers cos the film is THAT incompetently predictable) is the most pre-school way  that even the original 'True Love's Kiss' cliche that doesn't work felt like a more plausible way to resolve it. And what makes this even worse is that Mr Poppy is never given any repercussions & is actually praised by Mr Shepherd despite all the awful things he does. This is that banal, obnoxious, irritating & artificial, that I was literally on the verge of throwing my laptop against a wall!

Visuals: I'm just quickly going to go through this because unlike the others, this movie has some of the shoddiest visuals I've ever seen, including easily some of the worst location doubling for New York ever! While it's pretty clear they only quickly filmed a few bits in the Big Apple for one day (or rather one night) because of the low budget, it's immediately negated by the fact the 'hotel' Sophie's staying in where a majority of New York scenes are is obviously an English country house! This begs the question why didn't they at least film in a swanky hotel in somewhere like London if they could clearly afford to film there for the flashmob competition? Anyway, besides that, even a restaurant they film in is clearly in England because you can clearly see a grassy field in the background in one scene! In bloody New York apparently! As for the costumes, they all look so cheap-looking & garish with the over-saturated colour scheme making me feel like I'm watching a cheesy school play without any of the rustic charm! This is especially apparent during the flashmobs/musical numbers & speaking of, the choreographing of the flashmobs also has that on the spot feeling & are very unenjoyable to watch, which doesn't particularly help when they plague the screen time & pad the film unnecessarily. I think it's safe to say that the visuals in this are beyond a downgrade and are a case of cheap in a bad way unlike the first movie!

Characters: If the story & cheap visuals weren't awful enough, then let me introduce you to some of the most bland, irritating & obnoxious characters ever invented! Martin Clunes' Mr Shepherd is obviously meant to be emulate Freeman & Tennant's 'straight man' except this time round he's not because thanks to his amnesia, he them has to act like an overgrown child like Poppy in an utterly gaudy wardrobe to match which makes the even more clearly embarrassed Clunes lose all of his dignity. And speaking of Mr Poppy...by God, he is intolerable in this & that's putting it lightly! Not only is he stupider & crazier compared to the second film & does nothing but yell because apparently everything is funny when a grown man yells the plot points like a child, but he's so despicable & spiteful cos he lies to Mr Shepherd throughout the whole movie & kidnaps the kids to New York for his own selfish reasons! Catherine Tate's Sophie is just relegated to plot device/love interest & the movie wastes so much potential cos Catherine Tate is one of Britain's most beloved comediennes & yet does absolutely nothing funny. And speaking of love interests, Adam Garcia plays Bradley, the 'rival love interest' for Sophie that's a campy flashmob co-ordinator who's not threatening at all & for some reason Sophie's family including her brother (Ralf Little) all want her to be with him despite being engaged to Jeremy. By the way, Gordon Shakespeare appears for no other reason than try to emulate the original despite having absolutely no purpose in this one & having none of the heart or fun! Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that this has probably the most unrealistically incompetent doctor ever put on screen! Mrs Keen (Celia Imrie) is nothing more than the generic strict headmistress with no brain cells since she doesn't notice her own students missing for several days on end & to say that she's no Mrs Bevan would be an understatement. Actually, there's only ONE character who has something called 'development' in this movie: Henry the concierge. Despite having such an atrocious American accent & no actual scenes of development, at least he has an arc of growing to like the kids after being (rightfully) angry at their antics. And another that's equally as bad as the poorly written characters is the acting because right from line numero uno, it's absolutely atrocious. And I feel sorry for the child actors (one played by director Debbie Isitt's daughter strangely looks about 15 compared to the group of 6-7 year olds) in this because it's clear they're trying their best (especially Lauren Hobbes as Shepherd's daughter), but the directing & material are that incompetently put together that they end up being infuriatingly annoying up to the point that one kid actually mouths all the lines in one scene yet nobody noticed! Actually, why are we meant to like these children? All they do is run around, shout, make a mess of an expensive hotel, lie to Mr Shepherd & get their own way while doing nothing to deserve it. None of them have personalities at all & that's why they fail as realistic children. It really says a lot when not even their parents notice they're gone! You may have thought the characters were boring & generic in the second movie, but you haven't seen anything with this!

Songs: Yep, like the others this is a musical & they are even more phoned in & poorly put together than the second film because a majority of them are for forgettable & poorly choreographed flashmobs which plague this film. The titular Dude Where's My Donkey is a pathetic rap trying to explain to Mr Shepherd the nativity story, Christmas Shopping for the flashmob at the beginning is a generic pop song focusing on the commercialization of the holiday (bit ironic for a movie which supposedly focuses on the nativity) & Our Christmas Song is also poorly executed with banal lyrics which at one point actually somehow glorifies Christmas shopping in September (who the hell actually says they like doing that?). For the flashmob contest, every single song is just bland & forgettable so I'm just going to glance over them since they all follow consecutively in the scene & then You're Flying to New York is also asinine because it raises so many questions with how the kids don't get in trouble at the airport & how Shakespeare doesn't recognise them from the school! The Mistletoe Song is just to find a way to get Sophie & Jeremy to kiss to get his memories back which ends up being pointless after it doesn't work & is just cloyingly annoying, Marry Bradley Finch is probably the moist bizarre because it's Sophie's own family doing a flashmob to her trying to convince her to do what the title says despite still being engaged to Jeremy & The Wedding Song is just banal & ridiculous. Literally for every single song in this, the lyrics feel like they were thought up on the spot with absolutely no effort put in to try & make it all schmaltzy despite the falseness of the project because a majority of them are literally just the characters singing what they're doing. And the worst part is they're all put together into a medley at the very end as some sort of encore as if it was a stage musical with the donkey twerking it's arse off on a poorly put together set of the Empire State Building! There's banal, there's pathetic & then there's just this!

WHAT THE HELL AM I LOOKING AT?!

Words actually fail to describe how obnoxious & asinine this movie is! The writing is abysmally lazy, contrived & ridiculously cliched, the location doubling, flashmobs & cinematography are beyond amateur, I want to punch every single character in the face (ESPECIALLY Mr Poppy) because of how incompetent they all are both in writing & acting & the songs made my eardrums explode with how atrocious they are. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT watch this movie! Unless you want to see some beloved British actors be insultingly wasted & lose every ounce of their dignity, this is without a doubt the worst Christmas movie I have EVER sat through! This is beyond rubbish! This is rubbish that has already been left to the incinerator to burn & turn into measly ash! Although given that the director has the tactic of 'writing a story but not showing it to the actors', that might actually be a good explanation as to why this is as disgusting as having to shit out a piece of Christmas fruitcake!
Story: 1/10
Visuals: 1/10
Characters: 1/10
Songs: 1/10
Overall: 1/10