"I shot Santa Claus in the face--he's real, and I shot him in the face!"
The Story:
It’s been years since Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) escaped Guantanamo Bay and hooked up with the girls of their dreams in Amsterdam. They’ve since grown apart, as Harold finally moved out of their dingy apartment to become a happily-married and successful banker who has given up weed. Meanwhile, Kumar has literally burned out of the medical practice and is spending his Christmas perpetually blazed and watching A Christmas Story. They’ve even each got new friends; in fact, they haven’t even seen each other in two years. However, the two are reunited when a mysterious package arrives at Kumar’s door; it takes the hapless stoner about two minutes to burn down the prize Christmas tree that Maria’s father (Danny Trejo) brought home for the holidays, so the duo are forced to set out on yet another epic journey to find a replacement.
The Review:
The Review:
One of the best things about Christmas time is catching up with old friends and family, so it’s appropriate that our favorite stoner buddies have returned this holiday season. It’s nice to have them back--once they actually are back, that is. The early going had me squirming in my chair with a bit of nervousness. It’s not that it isn’t funny (the opening scene with Kumar and a department store Santa is the best since Ralphie’s ill-fated encounter); it’s just that this is Harold and Kumar 3, so we want to spend as much time with them as possible. Instead, the opening act saddles us with the new guys (Tom Lennon and Amir Blumenfeld) a little bit too much; they aren’t altogether unbearable (Lennon is a great parody of a hopelessly white bread middle class nerd), but, again, we’re here to see the title characters. There’s a reason these two newcomers are essentially the lame replacements, as Harold and Kumar are an inseparable tandem whose chemistry can’t be matched.
That chemistry is still very much on display, and when Penn and Cho are finally unleashed, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas is yet another deranged, surreal journey that's full of laughs. It perhaps doesn’t show the smart, satirical chops of the first two (though they still work in some of the parody of racial stereotypes here and there), but it’s got the same ballsy, irreverent streak. The humor goes to some really wicked, daring places, particularly when Kumar comes up with a scheme to steal a tree from a nearby church. Let’s just say it involves little boys, priests, some blasphemous bush shots, and Penn dressed up as an archbishop. This is a movie where a recurring gag involves an infant with a newfound drug addiction after Kumar tokes up in her presence--and that’s not even the funniest thing that happens involving her.
The one newcomer who fares very well is Trejo as Maria’s father; a longtime portrayer of grim-faced tough guys in Hollywood, he’ll slay you as soon as he shows up sporting a hideous Christmas sweater. Machete might not text, but he sure loves Christmas, and the story that explains his unnatural love for real (not faux) Christmas trees starts out like one of those quaint holiday cartoons about a poor kid but soon descends into the saddest tale of maternal loss this side of Nester, The Long Eared Christmas Donkey. It also explains his unfortunate distaste for Koreans, which is bad news for Harold, obviously.
But it’s the old favorites that make this a merry affair. Neil Patrick Harris is back after being deemed too badass for Jesus and heaven and once again inexplicably shows up to save the day. Unsurprisingly, his sexuality isn’t off the table as a source of humor; in fact, it’s one of the film’s better jokes when he reveals why he came out to the public. Rest assured, the PH still stands for “poon handler,” and he’s still a show stealer. Other callbacks include a brief return of Goldstein and Rosenberg (David Krumholtz and Eddie Kaye Thomas), the two Jew friends who still deserve their own spin-off. In fact, I would much rather have been following their exploits rather than the two other new guys. Nods to the previous films are littered in for longtime fans; in fact, the film is pretty self-aware of itself as it pokes fun at Penn’s recent White House gig and even leaves the door open for a part four.
As a Christmas film, I don’t think it’ll take long for this one to join the ranks of the great holiday comedies. Between NPH’s show tunes number and a sequence that gives “White Christmas” a whole new meaning, plenty of musical holiday cheer abounds. Some bad eggnog leads to a hallucinatory claymation trip in the tradition of Rankin-Bass, and the boys even manage to run into Santa Claus. A Christmas Story seems to have been a favorite of screenwriters Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, as they work in a raunchy update of that film’s infamous frozen tongue gag. Oh, and the hot item within the film is the “Wafflebot,” an eerily sentient waffle machine who hates pancakes and comes in handy when you need to escape from the grasp of some homicidal gangsters. Easily the best Christmas toy since the Talkboy in Home Alone 2, Wafflebot is actually a cooler, more fun character than Harold and Kumar’s new buddies.
And of course, there’s a Christmas miracle or two. Beneath all of the silliness, the story of two buddies coming back together to learn the value of their friendship is strongly realized. ‘Tis the season for good will, and Harold and Kumar have built up a lot of it with their previous adventures. That’s why we want to see them triumph over all of the obstacles they encounter: the punk high school kids, the Ukrainian mob, and, finally, their own estrangement. A lot of this stuff is just relearned lessons from the previous film (in short, Kumar’s gotta grow up, Harold’s gotta cut loose), but it’s somehow even more heartwarming. Even though I’ll undoubtedly be there if these two come back together, this one appropriately ties a nice bow on this epic saga of misadventure. Consider it an early Christmas present that'll make up for those crappy socks you're bound to get next month. (Brett G.)
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