Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
11/25/11
Ah,
Harold Lee and Kumar Patel, patron saints of pot smoking and assorted wacky
debauchery: the 2004 sleeper hit Harold & Kumar Go to White
Castle introduced audiences to a formula built on things you just don’t
see: stoner comedy that’s actually smart, and a Hollywood movie fronted
by two minorities, neither of whom is black or Hispanic. The cult
following that grew up around that hilarious film led to an even better
sequel, Harold &
Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, which is one of the smartest comedies
of recent years, all the while being unrepentantly gross and silly.
So when a third installment of the franchise was announced that would center
around Christmas AND be in 3D, my hopes were high. A Very Harold
& Kumar 3D Christmas succeeds at being very funny (and VERY gross),
and has a far better sense of what people want out of 3D than most of the
big-budget blockbusters we’ve seen use the technology. It’s not the
great MOVIE its predecessors were, with an episodic plot that mostly falls
flat. But if you love Harold & Kumar, you’ll find plenty to enjoy
here: 3D Christmas is a lesser installment in the franchise,
but it’s still one of the year’s funniest movies.
It’s
the night before Christmas, six years since George W. Bush cleared up that
whole Guantanamo Bay mix-up, and our heroes have gone their separate ways.
Harold (John Cho) has gone completely legit, taking a high-paying office
job and giving up weed while trying to have a baby with his wife Maria
(Paul Garces). Kumar (Kal Penn), meanwhile, took a failed drug test
that led to his suspension as a doctor as his cue to go into a smoke-filled
downward spiral that drove away his girlfriend Vanessa (Danneel Harris).
She returns to let him know she’s pregnant with their child, but his immature
reaction sends her right out the door before a mysterious package arrives
addressed to Harold. Kumar decides to drop it off on the way to a
party where his new friend Adrian (Amir Blumenfeld) plans to deflower the
online girl of his dreams. But one thing leads to another and soon
enough he’s managed to burn down the prized Christmas Tree brought by Maria’s
disapproving father (Danny Trejo). Harold is frantic, and calls his
new friend Todd (Tom Lennon) to help him get a replacement. One thing
leads to another and soon all four men are at the party, where said online
dream girl (Jordan Hinston) turns out to have a very good reason to be
looking for guys on the Internet to be her First: her father is the
brutal Russian Gangster Sergei Katsov (Elias Koteas), who’s soon marked
them all for death. While Adrian and Todd hide in his closet, Harold
& Kumar race all over the city trying to stay alive and find that tree.
Might there be a suitable replacement on the set of the Neil Patrick Harris
Christmas Special?
If
you thought trying to get to White Castle to assuage a case of the munchies
was a thin plot, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Like the old Abbott
& Costello TV show that pinballed the stars from one wacky situation
to another for no reason other than a pretense to let them do their famous
vaudeville routines, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas really
can’t be bothered to worry about the tree, or the mob, or anything else
for more than five minutes at a time. That’s a very big letdown after
the tight, clever and well-cast Guantanamo Bay, but, like Abbott
& Costello, Cho, Penn and writers Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg
(who’ve written all three H&K films) do know how to deliver laughs
whether they’ve got a lick of plot behind them or not. Christmas
takes R-rated transgression to a whole new level, particularly in the case
of Todd’s toddler daughter Ava (triplets Ashley, Chloe & Hannah Cross),
who’s exposed first to pot, then cocaine and finally Ecstasy in the first
comic subplot involving hard drug use by a child I can recall. There’s
also a whole lot of screen time for assorted wacky penises (at least one
of them claymated) and a particularly brazen pedophile Priest gag.
To its credit, the movie is rarely gross for gross’ sake (OK, there’s that
one bit with Trejo and the tree that is hoping your brain will process
slack-jawed amazement at what the MPAA will allow into an R-rated movie
these days as hilarity) and has a great deal of fun being an equal-opportunity
offender of all Christmas rituals and traditions.
The
stars know their roles inside-and-out, and the chemistry between Cho and
Penn is as strong as ever. I wish Penn got to spend a little more
time with Harris, whose Vanessa is Kumar’s perfect slacker match even if
this time we learn that even she has her limits, and Harris’ “character”
has been a bit painted into a corner by the real-life comeback his presence
in the first two movies facilitated. Yeah, it’s a fun idea that he’s
only pretending to be gay, and his real-life husband David Burtka is game
as himself. But the movie can’t quite demonstrate to us how it’s
to NPH’s advantage to stage the ruse, and while his Christmas Special tries
really hard to mock the horrors of the real thing, real Christmas Specials
are so horrible as to be almost immune to mockery. Lennon is a great
addition to the cast, and shines in a role that very rarely works:
the square co-worker who represents everything Harold’s trying to become
as he pushes his old friend away. Koteas doesn’t really have anything
funny to do, while Trejo certainly would make an intimidating father-in-law.
The
most pleasant surprise of 3D Christmas is the 3D: from the
beginning of the digital revival, we’ve heard filmmakers babble idiocy
about how they weren’t going to waste the new technology on cheesy gimmicks
like throwing stuff at the audience when the only real purpose of 3D is
to throw stuff at the audience. Director Todd Strauss-Schulson (making
his H&K debut) gets it, and in fact leaves no opportunity to hurl eggs,
confetti or pieces of exploding glass at the audience go untaken.
A
Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is a very Harold & Kumar 3D
sequel: it delivers the comic spark of the characters you love without
giving them a vehicle as good as the ones that made you love them.
But it’s good for more than a few laughs and also prominently features
a waffle-making robot, so you could do a lot worse. But that’s no
reason why, the next time they crank up this franchise (as NPH, with his
new-found psychic powers, has already forseen), they shouldn’t try to do
a little better. |
