We have made it to the final instalment in this franchise. So, lets have a quick re-cap. 'Nativity' (2009) is great. 'Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger' (2012) is bad. 'Nativity 3: Dude Where's My Donkey?!' (2014) is horrendous. 'Nativity Rocks' (2018) is slightly less horrendous. Very, very slightly. It is still pretty terrible and hopefully will be the final death nail in the coffin of this franchise. As a film this is actually not as good as the third film, but I definitely found it less annoying and I don't hate it nearly as much. Its still shit though. The story of the film finds us back at St. Bernadettes where the school are going to audition to be in the Christmas show which will be a rock opera. None of the teachers want to do it, but luckily, Jerry Poppy (Simon Lipkin), the younger brother of our 'beloved' Mr. Poppy, arrives at the school to find his brother. He agrees to help them prepare for the performance and shenanigans occur. Oh, and there is an egotistical musical director, Emmanuel Cavendish (Craig Revel Horwood), who is trying to sabotage the show. Oh and the new teacher at the school, Mr. Johnson (Daniel Boys), is trying to find a girlfriend. Oh, and there is a little boy who is lonely because he has no friends and his parents are to busy with business to spend time with him. Oh, and there is a Syrian refugee who has been split up from his dad.
This film is a complete an utter mess. Just take another look at the plot synopsis. The film is trying to juggle far to many plot points and every single one gets lost in the shuffle. In a film that lasts an hour and forty minutes there are at least 4 plots going on that the film has to start and wrap up in that time. This becomes even more difficult when the filmmakers decided to devote the last twenty minutes to the rock opera they have been practicing for, a la the first film. All this leads to a complete mess of a story which is ridiculously rushed. Everything in the film feels rushed. All the characters change their motivations on a whim and so there is absolutely no point in emotionally investing in anything that is going on. The film also feels like its a 'Nativity' knock off rather than the next in the series. The lack of returning characters and the cheaper feel of the film is a big help in creating this feeling. The music is also poor. It is totally unmemorable and just lacking in quality all round. There is no point in going in to the plot holes of the film because, whatever. It doesn't really matter when the script is horrible to begin with. I do have a positive though. The direction and cinematography of the film is fine. Nothing special, but fine. That's about as good as this film could possibly hope for.
All the performances are pretty lacklustre too. Most of the actors seem to be slumming it. I don't blame them for this, the film seems to be slumming it in general so why should any of the actors care all that much either. I might be completely off with this and all of these actors may have been giving there all. If that's the case then the film is worse than I thought. One actor who I can't tell if they are slumming it or not is Hugh Dennis as Robert Hargreaves. This is because he is playing Hugh Dennis. I like him as a comedian but I don't think he is great range as an actor but he does fine in the film. One actor who is definitely not slumming it, and the only other performance worthy of note, is Simon Lipkin as Jerry Poppy. He is seemingly putting his all in to the performance. Unfortunately, his effort does not translate into a good performance. I don't think this is entirely his fault. The character is really poorly written and is somewhere between Mr' Poppy from the other films and Jack Black from 'School of Rock' (2003). This is a terrible combination of attributes to have and Lipkin struggles to turn it into a good performance. But he is very obviously trying and I can give him props for that at least.
I'm very glad I have got to the end of this particular franchise. Despite really enjoying the first 'Nativity' I never felt that there was any need for a sequel, let alone three of them. It is clear from the ever dwindling quality of the films that there was no need. The second film was already scraping the barrel for ideas, and by the time they got to 'Nativity Rocks!' they were clearly just throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks. This film is ridiculously convoluted, and needlessly so. They could have easily taken two of the plots and made that the film. But they decide to have 4 plots and so none of them are satisfying to the audience. I don't recommend the film. It may be better than the third one, but that film was so shit that the bar to be better than that is ridiculously low. So if you have seen the first two and really want another 'Nativity' fix then maybe watch this one, but if I was you I'd just throw the first one back on again.