I just saw A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. I probably have about three seconds to sell you on this one, so I’ll just say it: It’s actually really fun.
If you haven’t kept up with the franchise, Harold and Kumar — the Asian/Indian stoner duo — got their start back in 2004 when they were craving White Castle; they took a turn through Gitmo in ’08 (didn’t see it — looked like junk), and now they’re back and in NYC for this latest installment. Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg penned all three, tried their hand at directing the second, and (wisely, it seems) handed the directorial reins off again for this lucky third try, this time to Todd Strauss-Schulson. (He’s directed a bunch of shorts, TV movies and TV shows, but it looks like this is his first crack at a feature film.) This is hardly a recipe for Citizen Kane, and true to form this film delivers more or less what you’d expect: A barrage of stoner jokes, race jokes, dick jokes, scat jokes, sex jokes, a Neil Patrick Harris cameo, some physical comedy, and — new in this installment — gobs of gratuitous 3D imagery.
It just happens, on balance, to do these things fairly well.
If you’re in the mood for some lighthearted, off-color, occasionally hilarious material, H&K3D delivers.
The plot, such as it is: Harold and Kumar have stopped talking — Harold is married with a fancy job, fancy house, and fancy sex-crazed wife, while Kumar loafs around hitting the bong. (Admittedly, this is well done and still pretty funny to watch.) When the two reunite and set fire to an important tree, they’re catapulted on a Christmas adventure that’s sometimes semi-plausible (buying Christmas trees) and sometimes ultra-wiggy (third-act interactions with Santa himself). A toddler ingests more psychotropics than Hunter Thompson, life lessons are learned (sort of), drugs are embraced (surprise), and vows are affirmed (mainly the characters’ devotion to weed). The waffle-bot is great for about the first five minutes it’s on screen.
John Cho and Kal Penn are comfortable in these roles by now, Cho playing the straight(er) Harold and Penn the stoner(ier?) Kumar. The supporting cast is generally strong too — and the coked-out baby draws laughs — though I found Thomas Lennon just a bit too manic here as Harold’s uber-white pal, and Elias Koteas just a bit too serious in his turn as a Russian mobster. Danny Trejo (recently of Machete fame) is terrific as Harold’s father in law. Neil Patrick Harris hams it up to the max and dispenses his profanity-laced dialogue with a showman’s grin. Old Doogie‘s probably wondering how he got into this mess. He took that initial cameo in 2004 when he wasn’t anywhere near the star he is today. I guess it’s the right problem to have; Tara Reid can only dream. (For now.)
The biggest risk with a film like this is that the jokes fall flat, and I don’t think they do, here. It’s not a great comedy by any means, but it’s high enough on its own supply to be truly weird at times, and it never poisons the comedic well with truly mean-spirited characters.
Cheap laughs abound, sure, but they’re solid. The film churns forward, rarely lagging, and positively gleams in 3D. It’s surprisingly shiny, tight, high-budget. The 3D effects are actually quite good. It has claymation. It has a terrific heist montage with an archbishop outfit and topless nuns. H&K are crowded a bit by secondary characters, a problem remedied midway through Act Two by conveniently locking these also-rans in a closet. Hey, not the most elegant solution, but what do you want? It’s a stoner film, after all.
I confess to a certain irrational cheering of this film. I’m almost proud that, against all odds, this movie was entertaining. (I felt similar when my old police car with the leaky exhaust manifold somehow passed an emissions test — when you expect failure, even a bones-average showing is cause to celebrate.)
So what can I say? If you think you’ll hate a movie like this, you’ll probably really hate this movie. If you’re on the fence, go see it. It takes 3D to … new places. And it’s surprisingly well done, all told.
HAUS VERDICT: The otherwise tiring class clown has cracked a good joke. Respect is due.
See what the other half thinks: Parsi’s view.
I have not seen this movie yet, but nevertheless consider it a light-hearted romp through the same subject matter covered in such great films as Schindler’s list and 12 Angry Jurors, the latter starring the late Eddie Murphy in a cameo as Shiva the Goddess of Death. In that tradition, we are touched by the poignant representation of Harold as a down on his luck loser who scores big for the team when he and his hapless friend Kumar enter a tunnel leading nowhere in particular, evoking the essential questions of life and death, right and wrong, and the romantical dilemma of every red-blooded American assassin. Largely strung together by a post-modern riff on such greats as “who’s on first?” and “a dingo ate my baby”, I strongly recommend this film to anyone in the mood for an uplifting and heartwarming soft porn.