What does it take to offend you? A pre-toddler doing blow? A gigantic claymation penis? How about shooting Santa Claus in the face? No? That’s good stuff? Then I have a movie for you … For the uninitiated, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are like a modern day Cheech and Chong, two buddies continually having drug-induced adventures. Hmm, it occurs to me that reference does nothing for a certain crowd. Ok, I got it: imagine if Pokémon and his pal Yu-Gi-Oh! were not so interested in fighting and more into, say, smoking weed constantly, then you might get something in this ballpark*
It’s like The Change-Up, only, you know, funny.
Describing the plot to A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas is a waste of time. Every Harold & Kumar is a moment movie –one that cares about the moment far more than the message. Sometimes it’s easy to tell moment movies – like ones that are shot in 3D. Sometimes it’s easier, like films that were shot in 2D for 90% percent of the film except when there’s a cool 3D effect to be had. Sometimes it’s even easier than that, like when a film makes a deliberate reference to being a 3D film and then showing a guy pointing aggressively at the camera while saying, “it makes Avatar look Avatarded!” or an egg thrown from three different angles for maximum projection enhancement. Yeah, that’s what we’ve got here. Desperate for Christmas magic or an uplifting message? Get the Hell outta here. Want to see a mall Santa double as drug dealer or a recreation of the “stuck to the pole” scene in A Christmas Story with not a tongue, but another outwardly extending body appendage south of the tongue? Again, this may be your movie. Choose wisely.
Neil Patrick Harris shows up once again as Neil Patrick Harris doing what Neil Patrick Harris does best – poke fun at Neil Patrick Harris. The gag this time around is NPH has parlayed his outed reputation into being the ultimate womanizer. It’s funnier here than in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. He caps his appearance with some filthy vocabulary, a thought of he and Clay Aiken trolling for trim and a “see you guys in #4” shout out. I’d love to say this brief performance was a lone stand-out, but NPH had plenty of supporting competition in this film, including Danny Trejo as Harold’s father-in-law (why exactly was it necessary for him to be shirtless in this film?) and my favorite 5-minute character of the year: Wafflebot:
That’s good eatin’.
Rated R, 90 Minutes
D: Todd Strauss-Schulson
W: Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg
Genre: Eye candy
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Underage boys sneaking into the theater
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The Man
* I am perfectly aware of how many mistakes that sentence has; it exists solely for the purposes of humor. No need to correct.
