Watch Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger! For Free

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

So much average

Just so...so bad

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Marc Wootton returns as the childlike incompetent teacher's assistant Mr Poppy and irritates the hell out of everyone including this viewer.David Tennant in a dual role is the new teacher Mr Donald Peterson who is tormented by Mr Poppy and ends up taking the schoolkids over the mountains of Wales to enter the National 'Song for Christmas' Competition, mainly because Mr Shakespeare from the posh rival school switched the road signs.However Mr Shakespeare meets his match in Mr Roderick Peterson, a celebrated musical director, also a cheat and Donald's twin brother who conspires to do whatever it takes to succeed.The film gives the impression that it had a semi finished script with some ad libbing from the kids. You get a bit of riffing of The X Factor audition stage. The infantile plot runs out of steam long before the finish line but then you end up with a lot of singing and dancing from the kids. All very forgettable and I doubt even the kids would enjoy it much.

Life is full of awful, scary, and full of serious things. You know what is refreshing? A bit of mindless watching that is not important or meaningful or relevant. Sometimes we just need silly fun. Stupid, silly, completely unbelievable fun. This ridiculous movie makes my children laugh. And it makes me laugh. It even makes my husband laugh (no mean feat). There are a lot of talented, serious, and celebrated actors in this movie who are not taking themselves seriously. And isn't that refreshing!The show itself is the highlight. So many clichés. Jessica Hynes arriving on the stage sitting in a flying wreath as the child singing sensation who's never moved on... The bleak, Dickensian number... The important classical piece... the totally awful rap number... and my favorite, "All I Want is Christmas Stuff". HAHAHAHAHA. And of course, TWO David Tennants.Don't be a Scrooge. Have some fun.

After the pleasing (justified) reaction to 2009s Nativity!, it's not unsurprising to find that two further films would follow it, starting with this, the first of the sequels. Formula remains the same as the first film, here we have David Tennant (great coup by writer and director Debbie Isitt to get him in a dual role) as an harangued teacher out on the road in charge of kiddies as they head towards the National 'Song for Christmas' Competition. Along side him, pulling the the emotional and cunning mental strings, is man-child Mr. Poppy (Marc Wooton once again on film stealing form), enter mirth, poignancy and a raft of engaging kiddies guaranteed to warm the cockles during Yuletide.This is undeniably Isitt and her team treading on safe ground, which is both a blessing and a curse. For although the finale here - as regards the competition - has a different twist to the first film, it still feels like a redux of that picture - this is because it is. There's also a problem in that the last third is crammed packed with the competition song entries, not to say the songs and routines aren't great (Isitt and editor Nicky Ager co-writing), they are, and it's a nice cross reference of different styles of music. It's just that there comes a point when it veers close to being filler to pad the pic out to over 100 minutes of film, where much of the comedic human drama gets lost in the mix.However, it's still a warm film, and a real foot tapper that's nice to get involved with at Christmas time. 6/10

Having never seen the first movie, I had no idea what to expect. I had no I tension of seeing this, because the the trailer looked awful, but my daughter is in charge so I had no choice.And while it's not the best film going, and it's about fifteen minutes too long, it was diverting and mildly amusing at times.Tennent plays the new teacher, who carries around a half heart picture of his twin, and whose wife is heavily pregnant. When he arrives at the school, his class are already preparing for the song for Christmas competition, which Mr Poppy is eager to do....So the film is basically a mix of road trip, and the X factor, with a lot of cute kids singing pretty awful songs, but hey,it's a Christmas movie, so it's heart is in the right place.If you can get past the fact that a lot of the characters would get into trouble by the police for kidnapping, baby snatching, leaving kids behind and not giving it a second thought and several other crimes, it's quite endearing stuff.Tennent is good in his role, but he's playing second fiddle to the guy who plays Mr Poppy. And believe me, he's the marmite of acting, you either love him or hate him, and thankfully, I tolerated the idiot, because he had a heart of gold really.So all in all, it's predictable stuff, almost verging on pantomime in some instants, the ending is what you would expect, child birth in a stable in full view of children did surprise me though.But the fact that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would surprised me the most.A pleasant, totally inoffensive family movie, and those are rare....