A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
DIRECTED BY TODD STRAUSS-SCHULSON
Having previously overcome both an acute case of the munchies and allegations of international terrorism, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas sees the titular South/East Asian stoner duo embark on yet another series of psychotropic shenanigans. While 2008’s Escape from Guantanamo Bay took place in the days immediately following the friends’ fateful foray to White Castle, Harold & Kumar 3D revisits the pair six years on as, initially, the once-inseparable best buds have grown apart.
Harold (John Cho) has matured, married, and moved to the suburbs, but Kumar (Kal Penn) remains stubbornly averse to the trappings of adult life (read: to not being permanently baked). They’re nonetheless reunited on Christmas Eve, when Kumar ventures to Harold’s home to return a misaddressed package. Inside is a mammoth, magical spliff, which, once sparked up at Kumar’s insistence, promptly incinerates the Christmas tree, dearly beloved by Harold’s fearsome father-in-law (Danny Trejo). An emergency replacement is sought and, naturally, various naughty and narcotized hijinks ensue.
Director Todd Strauss-Schulson’s gimmicky, suitably depraved use of 3D is literally the film’s stand-out feature, as otherwise, like its protagonists, the series’ trademark combination of gratuitous drug and dick jokes has begun to get old; likewise its skewed take on ethnic stereotypes, which here is less subversive than lazy. The assorted Yuletide gags do go some way to refreshing the formula—most notably in the form of a hallucinatory claymation interlude—but would be more effective had South Park‘s merrily sacrilegious Christmas specials not long since mined similar territory.
With Cho and Penn’s natural chemistry at its core, the end product is tolerable rather than terrible, and its conclusion, with the two friends reconciled, seems like a sensible point to close the series. As such, the parting shot in Neil Patrick Harris’s obligatory cameo (“See you in the fourth one!”) is hopefully just a self-aware gibe at sequelization, rather than a sincere statement of intent.