A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas Review
By: T.J. “I’m not going to let you rape my friend on Christmas Eve” Mulligan
Few genres have seemingly less in common than that of the stoner comedy and the Christmas/Holiday movie. The former usually includes raunch and/or gross-out humor, immature jokes and excessive drug usage and nudity, found in such cinematic offerings as Dude, Where’s My Car?, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and any number of direct-to-DVD National Lampoon releases. The Christmas movie is generally categorized by its sentimental story, character redemption and no small amount of “Christmas miracles,” sometimes even whipping in some religious allegory for good measure. When one thinks of Christmas movies the mind goes to Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life or, my personal favorite, A Christmas Story. So what happens when these two genres collide head-on? That’s the question answered by the third installment of the Harold & Kumar franchise, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.
Since the last film, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, stoner pals Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) have begun drifting apart. Harold is a successful businessman on Wall Street, married to his sweetheart Maria (Paula Garces) and living in a lush, beautiful home. Kumar, however, is still living in the old apartment where he spends most of his time wallowing in a cloud of smoke since being dumped by his girlfriend Vanessa (Danneel Harris) and not pursuing his career path of being a doctor. While Harold is spending Christmas hosting his intimidating in-laws, led by Maria’s Christmas-obsessed, Korean-hating father Mr. Perez (Danny Trejo), Kumar is dealing with a bombshell announcement levied on him by Vanessa… she’s pregnant. Kumar, instead of dealing with his problem head-on, decides to attend a Christmas Eve party with his new buddy Adrian (Amir Blumenfeld). Before they leave, a mysterious package arrives addressed to Harold. Kumar decides to drop it off on the way. Kumar arrives at Harold’s, impressed with the house but not the way his old pal is acting these days. When Harold opens the package, it is revealed to be a massive joint, which Kumar immediately wants to smoke. Harold throws the lit joint out of the window, but it miraculously comes back in another window, setting Mr. Perez’s prized tree on fire. With the tree destroyed, Harold tells Kumar to leave, reserves the only other tree like the one they burned left in the city and calls his corporate friend Todd (Thomas Lennon) to help him get it. Feeling bad, Kumar makes Adrian stop by a lot and bribes the owners to sell him their best tree, the same one Harold reserved. Harold arrives at the lot moments later to find that it’s been bought and he and Todd begin to pursue the car with the tree on top. The chase causes Adrian to crash, ruining the tree in the process. From there the guys decide to form a united front to recover a tree but, of course, it won’t be as easy as all of that.
A little while ago I put up a review of Hugo, in which I state that the 3D format of that movie doesn’t rely as much on tricks such as having objects fly at the camera. That is the opposite of AVH&K3DC (wow, even abbreviating that is long). Such objects that “fly” at the audiences are flaming trees, a ceramic baby Jesus, a claymation penis and, of course, thick clouds of weed smoke. Other than that the 3D is just there, a future reminder of the zeitgeist of 2011 in cinema.
The jokes this time are a lot more hit-or-miss then in the previous two installments, even with the addition of someone as comedically gifted as Lennon. Some moments will make you laugh right out loud (WaffleBot) and some just elicit a slight chuckle at best (anything Adrian says or does, for the most part). In fact, the entire movie seems to just lull along until the midway-through appearance of Neil Patrick Harris, who has consistently stolen the show in these movies, with this one being no different. The whole spirit of the film seems to pick up after that, which goes to show just what a man of his talent adds.
What is most interesting about this film is the way it is able to be at the same time an uber-stoner flick but also a pretty decent Christmas film. Anyone who has seen the other two films pretty much knows what to expect, but this film shows a more sensitive, dare I say grown-up version of out two favorite cinematic stoners since Cheech and Chong.
In the end, you probably already know if this is the type of movie you want to see so rating it is arbitrary, but far be it for me not to follow protocol.
I give A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas 3 WaffleBots out of 5.
