Danger in the Manger disappoints all, even the diehard Whovians

Danger in the Manger is the sequel to Nativity!.   I never saw Nativity!, but it must have been good enough to merit a sequel, right?  They would never make a sequel to a Christmas movie just because it’s a seasonal movie, would they?  This is the story of a Christmas song competition, a class of regular students with a jokey teacher that gets into the finals, the pretentious yet well meaning class of talented singers and a class representing the ones that win every year.  Think of it as Christmas themed episode of Glee with elements of The Bad News Bears tossed in for comedic effect.

The jokey un accredited teacher is played by Marc Wooton.  His character is more of a friend than a teacher and is constantly thwarting efforts from the principal, who is also his aunt, to have a proper teacher placed in the class room.   The song process and his teaching methods feel like a warmed over School of Rock montage.   He hears about a contest for children to sing a Christmas song for prize money, they enter, get in the finals and surprise everyone by doing a great job singing!

Thankfully Danger in the Manger surprised everyone by not having them win the competition.  The movie is more about the relationship of a teacher (David Tennant) who is tricked into helming the class and his relationship with his twin brother who teaches the glee club that ultimately wins.  Toss in a pregnant wife, bad auditions for the Christmas song competition, clichés that you’d use on a road trip and some light potty humor and you’ve got the movie.

Christmas movies are graded on a certain curve.   Audience expectations aren’t necessarily lower around December are they?  Yet, most of the Christmas movies that you see have a straight to video feel, are not funny and entirely too smatltzy.

That’s the problem with Danger in the Manger.  It’s slow, there are very few laughs and it feels like a rehash of other movies that weren’t that good the first time around.  Danger in the Manger, even for Whovians-and I am one, is tough to watch.  Children may like it when look at the movie from the Christmas movie scale perspective, but that’s about it.