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Debbie Isitt’s most recent stone on the cairn of Christmas films does a lot of box ticking: New York, adorable children, and a wedding that only the adorable children can save. Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?! doesn’t stray far from the well-hewn template of a Christmas classic. However, it does try to modernise it: despite the title, the film doesn’t actually feature a nativity. This is scrapped altogether and in its place we are given flashmobs.

The children of St. Bernadette’s Primary School Coventry tear up the streets of London and NYC so that a widowed Mr. Shepherd (Martin Clunes) can regain his memory — after being kicked in the head by a donkey — in order to rekindle his love for the beloved Sophie (Catherine Tate). All the plot ingredients are there if Nativity 3 is to have longevity in the pantheon of festive daytime TV. But sadly this seems unlikely.

Anyone over the age of ten watching the film will have to deal with the really quite aggressive product placement, a Jackson 5 song being ruined, puns like “elfie” (as in selfie), and both an exclamation and question mark in the title. Nativity 3 wasn’t made for anyone born before the millennium and the film is refreshingly unapologetic about it. With all respect to a slimmed-down Clunes, we don’t have the eyes of Hugh Grant in Love Actually to fall into, nor is the story one of saccharine romance. And although Tate and Clunes have their backgrounds in comedy, they find themselves as puppets in a joke where the children of St. Bernadette’s are pulling the strings.

So, might this be a film where we can revel in the magic of Christmas without grown-ups doing yucky things and making jokes that aren’t funny? Well, in many ways the figure of most authority is Lauren (Lauren Hobbs), the young daughter of Mr. Stephens and the only character who actually commands the camera. The failing of the film is that she alone is left to do so, and all too fleetingly.

The problem is this: if you want to make a film where the children reign and all the adults are shown to be silly, ineffectual and ultimately in need of saving, as there are here, you need to establish strong characters for a number of the children, not just one. And when you have a cast of Tate, Clunes and Celia Imrie (taking to the role of a stern but flustered headmistress very well) devoting more screen time to unknown child actors requires real bravery. Isitt was brave to take the genre away from the adults, but not brave enough to give it to the children.