A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas Review

Harold and Kumar, the twenty-first century’s answer to Cheech and Chong return with their third film, a festive extravaganza featuring hi-jinks (or, if you will, ‘high-jinks’), Father Christmas and, of course, Neil Patrick Harris. Or if we’re being humbugs, child abuse, grievous bodily harm and attempted rape.

It’s fairly amusing to note that Kal Penn (Kumar) abruptly left his regular gig on House (the character was hastily killed off off-screen) to take a job with the Obama administration, a post he left with similar swiftness to film a new Harold & Kumar movie. Here is man with his priorities in order (Penn retook his post before leaving again to star in the NPH-starring How I Met your Mother). Bleary-eyed H&K fans will be glad that he did.

Taking place some years after Escape from Guantanamo Bay, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas sees the stoned twosome estranged from each other. Harold (Cho) is raking in the cash on Wall Street and trying for a baby with Maria (Garcés), now his wife. He lives in thrall to the mother of all fathers-in-law, Danny Trejo, whose prize Christmas tree is destroyed almost immediately after Harold is reunited with the still slacking Kumar. The pair embarks on a bizarre journey through New York in search of a suitable replacement. Cue chaos.

The previous Harold & Kumar films have always been puerile, juvenile and consistently funny. They have also boasted something like a social conscious, offering sly commentary on racial attitudes in amongst the drug-taking and smut. Though the two preceding films are not exactly what you’d call cerebral, A Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas feels dumber even by H&K’s standards. The race jokes feel cheaper and less incisive, and rely more on daring to show stereotypes rather than challenge them. The attitude towards women is similarly troubling. NPH’s cameo still manages to be funny, but he’s disturbingly aggressive and rapey. Harris gets away with it, due to the ‘nice-guy’ persona he’s known for in the real world, but you feel there are probably very few other actors that would.

There’s probably an awful lot you could get offended by in this film (an infant being exposed to a frankly unhealthy amount of illegal narcotics, graphic penis abuse, Father Christmas getting shot in the face), but let’s not worry about all that and instead giggle ourselves silly at the antics these two get up to. There’s surrealist Claymation, wry stabs at the 3D medium, impressively up-to-date featuring of the Occupy movement, a funny robot; and that baby on drugs is pretty funny.

So: plenty of outrageous stunts, a lots of chuckles and a plethora of drug-taking fun (marijuana smoke appears to waft out of the screen into the auditorium with pleasing frequency, in what is possibly the best use of 3D yet). Most of all though, there’s the sense that the people making the film are having as much fun as those watching it. Not to get too deep man, but you can almost feel the love. A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is a pleasing festive viewing that fans will delight in. Ding dong merrily on high.