Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: The Cromwell family is at it again when they try to integrate monsters from Halloweentown at a human high school.
Review: I'll give this franchise a little credit--they are certainly consistent with the quality of each movie. Hell, I was even beginning to think this was better than part 2 until the ending had to come along and ruin everything. Besides the usual shenanigans and Harry Potter ripoffs I'd expect, they seriously dropped the ball when it came to the Cromwells being this powerful family. The brother is continually written to be an idiot and they wrote the little sister out of the script entirely. Come on, son! I don't understand why the dumbass brother would not want powers, and they refuse to explain it. Likewise, the little sister has been very important in the past two entries yet she only pops up for a handful of scenes, does nothing, and then completely disappears altogether at one point. What happened?
Despite it being a few years after part 2, Marnie is only just now facing consequences for permanently opening a portal to Halloweentown; they don't mention Kal at all by the way. Apparently Halloweentown has their own ministry of magic equivalent all of a sudden, and they make a bet against Marnie. Ugh...this plot line is painfully stupid--Marnie says something like "I bet..." in passing, and they use this as an excuse to take away the Cromwell family's power. The wager is that Marnie will prove humans can get along with monsters, and the portal stays open. The ministry of magic claims humans still hate monsters, and if they win the Cromwells give up their magic. I thought they were born with these abilities but okay.
Marnie sets up a makeshift exchange student program with a bunch of monsters pretending to be humans. Of course zany antics will ensue as the monsters try to fit in with humans, but it's handled better than you'd think. I was just annoyed that they made that idiot brother shocked that his own makeshift love interest was really a troll. This dumbass did realize they were monsters from Halloweentown all along, right? The other problem for Marnie is that there is supposedly an order of knights that want to kill monsters, and she must figure out if this is real. Once more they shape Marnie's love interest out to be a villain, but he's just a red herring as you'd easily suspect.
As it turns out, one of the ministry guys, his son, and the principal at the high school are working together to sabotage the Cromwells. The time limit to the wager was placed on Halloween, so, of course, everything goes to shit on that day. Marnie and crew prove that humans are okay with monsters after all as the students have developed friendships. It was stupid, though, how the Cromwells losing their powers didn't include the brother or little sister; the other films emphasized them combining their powers but not this time. Making matters worse, the film contradicts itself twice at the end with this whole acceptance theme. It's okay though since Marnie gets to make out with her little boyfriend, and Aggie gets a love interest too. Psshhh, whatever, dude.
This might sound like the worst of the three thus far, but it's the most Harry Potter-ish of the bunch. Take from that what you wish. I did enjoy the shenanigans of this entry, and the story is less convoluted than the first two installments. Other than my usual gripes about this series feeling cheap and unoriginal, I simply wanted tighter continuity. They didn't address Kal, the little sister is written out, the brother doesn't have powers anymore, and they don't show us Halloweentown. With that said, if you enjoyed the last two movies you should be happy with this entry as well.
Notable Moment: You have this message about acceptance all movie long only for the brother and his troll love interest to agree that the other is too ugly to even kiss. Oh Disney...
Final Rating: 5.5/10
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