Christmas tree quest root of 'Kumar' adventure
Ever since James Cameron's "Avatar" persuaded us that movies should treat 3-D as an organic part of storytelling and not as some cheap, visual gimmick, filmmakers have almost been embarrassed to show off their extra dimensions.
Not this movie.
"A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas" wallows in cheap, visual gimmicks.
Eggs splatter, windows shatter, people chatter, ping-pong balls clatter and cheap, visual gimmicks matter in this gloriously anarchistic 3-D comedy.
To be blunt, "A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas" is not a great comedy. It's not a particularly good movie, either.
But it is constructed of great comic parts, a bumpy series of subversively naughty jokes that dance on the edge of an NC-17 rating and induce laughter the way Pitocin induces labor.
Take the scene in which Harold (reprised by John Cho) accidentally shoots Santa Claus in the face.
With a shotgun.
"I shot Santa Claus in the face!" Harold cries in disbelief.
Or the scene where a baby gets a double high, first from inhaling marijuana clouds, then from sniffing crack so powerful that the poor tyke runs around on a closet ceiling like Rosemary's baby gone haywire.
Or the scene in which Harold and Kumar (reprised by Kal Penn) re-enact the famous tongue-stuck-to-the-pole scene from the classic "A Christmas Story."
Except it's not tongues that get stuck to the pole.
(Lest you think me a grand spoiler of movie surprises, fear not. Trailers and TV commercials have already ruined these aforementioned gags.)
There's something very liberating about a movie - Todd Strauss-Schulson's directorial feature debut - that feels as if it has been thrown together like a makeshift vase in a beginning pottery class.
Two years have passed since best pals Harold and Kumar have seen each other.
Harold has become a corporate success and a married homeowner.
Kumar has pretty much stayed the same party animal and non-comittal male as he was when he and Harold went to the White Castle back in 2004.
The simple plot kicks in when Harold tries to impress his judgmental father-in-law (tough-guy Danny Trejo) who insists on the perfect Christmas tree for the holidays.
Through a series of improbable events, the Christmas tree gets destroyed. A panicked Harold and Kumar head out on an emergency search to find and replace the tree before the relatives return home from a Christmas Eve trip into the city.
The rest of "Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas" becomes a pale echo of Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" with the pals leaping from one surrealistic event to the next.
No Harold and Kumar comedy has gone without its Neil Patrick Harris quotient.
The multitalented entertainer continues to prove his fearlessness when it comes to portraying himself in the worst of possible lights.
After branding a prostitute and getting shot in Texas during "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," Harris returns as himself, now a brazen pig who uses his gay reputation to have his way with unsuspecting women.
"I thought you were gay!" an attractive blonde shouts.
At least his donned apparel is.
<b>“A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas”</b>
★ ★ ½
Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Danny Trejo
Directed by: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated R for drug use, language, nudity, sexual situations, violence. 93 minutes