Having already watch and reviewed 'Nativity' (2009) for this CHristmas film challenge, it seemed to make sense to do the same with the sequel, 'Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger' (2012). I also do enjoy 'Nativity' so I had pretty solid expectations of the sequel. I also vaguely remember seeing this in parts and thinking it looked pretty good so my expectations were moderately high. At the very least I felt the film would be charming. The last thing I expected was for this film to genuinely piss me off. Not because of the quality of filmmaking or acting, but due to one of the characters who this film managed to make me hate. You can probably guess who that is from the title. The film sees us return to St Bernadettes, where Mr. Poppy (Marc Wootton) is till working as a classroom assistant. However, Mr. Maddens (Martin Freeman's character in the first film) has left to America, and so the school is in the process of hiring a new teacher. The teacher they hire is Donald Paterson (David Tennant), a newly qualified Primary School teacher with a heavily pregnant wife, a mean father who is disappointed in him and a twin brother who is a successful, but egotistical, classical composer. His new job sees him dealing with a classroom assistant who resents him and a classroom of kids desperate to enter the 'Song for Christmas' competition in Wales. When he says it isn't possible, Mr. Poppy and the kids take it upon themselves to travel to the competition, dragging along Mr. Peterson with them. This leaves Mr. Peterson panicked and angry, looking after a group of children, a man child and a baby, but also determined to get to and compete in the 'Song for Christmas' contest.
I want to take this whole paragraph to vent, but I'll open it with some other observations of the film. It is basically the same film as the last one with the ante upped. The song competition aspect of the film means that the last act of the film can accompanied by several musical performances by various groups of children, very much mimicking the nativity sequence from the first film. There are also more audition scenes showing kids being cute, silly and doing general kids things. They are very similar to the first film, but they are still entertaining and the filmmakers would be stupid to not put them in there. The plot is pretty weak and the script is not great, but the film is basically just an excuse to have musical moments. Right, lets get on to Mr. Poppy. What the fuck did they do to this character? In the first film he could be a bit annoying, but his buffoonery was charming and he was a little loveable. In this film he is just a dick. He is obnoxious, manipulative and mean but the film tries to play him off again as this loveable manchild. Buy I'm sorry, you can't have a man who consistently ignores instructions, puts children in harms way, treats people like shit and takes no blame for any of this be likeable, nevermind loveable. He is also a criminal, tying Mr. Peterson up, stealing his money and kidnapping a bus full of kids. But whenever Mr. Peterson calls him out on his shit, rightly I may add, he comes back with shit like 'You just don't believe in us' or 'You sound like your dad'. No Mr. Poppy you massive fucking twat you are clearly in the wrong, take some responsibility for once in your life before you get a kid killed. Maybe I shouldn't let a kids film get under my skin as much as this one has, but I don't think it is good or a film to hold a character like this up as the one to feel sympathy with when he is clearly a terrible influence, and I don't even like kids.
I'm going to talk about Mr. Poopy again, but I promise the most negative stuff is out of the way. Instead I'll talk about the performance of Marc Wootton who plays the character. He does as good a job as he did in the first film playing the character, getting across the buffoonery and infancy well. Unfortunately he is saddled with carrying one of the most dislikeable film characters of all time, and no I'm not being over dramatic. Jason Watkins is back as Mr. Shakespeare and he is as entertaining as he is in the first film, really hamming up the character and seemingly having a blast doing so. The only other performance of note is that of Tennant, playing both Donald Peterson and his twin, Roderick. The two are very different characters with Donald being a caring and hardworking person, who is loving and sensitive, while Roderick is a cold, harderend and snobby. Tennant manages to play both characters really well and you feel like the two are separate characters and people, a testament to the performance. The kids are all fine again, but they are seemingly not in this film nearly as much as the first. The first film had the kids be part of the stor, but in this film they are just an accessory to it. That does mean we get less time watching child actors though so.... positive?
Despite my venting and my hate for Mr. Poppy this film isn't actually terrible. The music is pretty good and the performances are all solid. It's shot pretty well and there are no real problems with the filmmaking in general. But the plot is weak, the script is really poor and the film lacks a lot of the charm of the first film. And Mr. Poppy is a bellend. I didn't want to bring it up again but I need to reiterate how much hate I have for this character. I'm not going to recommend this film. Its a needless sequel when it comes down to it and you should just watch the original one. So that's what I recommend for the second time in this challenge, watch the first one. At last Mr. Poppy isn't the spawn of satan in that one.