A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas (4/5 Stars)

The weird thing about the duo of Harold and Kumar is that the two actors playing them, John Cho and Kal Penn respectively, haven’t really found greater success outside of the “White Castle,” movies. If these trio of stoner road-trip movies prove anything it is that these two can carry a movie with just enough warmth and gravity to allow an audience to forgive an absolutely ridiculous plot and plenty of material that should be offensive but somehow comes off as normal good fun. That should put them in demand one would think. Perhaps it really has to do with their ethnicity (John Cho is Korean and Kal Penn is Indian) even though these movies are a sort of debunking of whatever theory that belongs too. It couldn’t be more plain that the pair are 100% American. They have no accents, enjoy fast food and getting high, and constantly find themselves in road-trip movies, that most American of movie genres. But great success in movies these two have not had (actually Kal Penn now works for the White House. Success? Yes. In movies? No) so I suppose it was inevitable that they answered the call for another “Harold & Kumar” movie, this time in 3D because well, why not.

The beginning of “A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas in 3D,” begins the duo split up. Harold has become a well-to-do wall street worker newly married to Maria from the 1^st movie. Kumar still lives in the same apartment as before and gets just as high as before. His girlfriend just left him over two months ago and the place looks like he hasn’t bothered to clean it since. Impending maturity knocks on the door when his girlfriend comes over to tell him that she is pregnant. There is also a slight problem in that Harold is throwing a Christmas party and has not invited Kumar. It is to the movie’s credit that it takes these problems semi-seriously because it adds some realistic weight to another completely ridiculous plot involving guys now in their thirties.

The humor in this movie is all over the place and though not all of the jokes hit home, there are enough of them for the movie to be truly funny. In addition, the road trip plot is segmented in such a way that new characters and situations easily come in, have their moment, and exit. New to the series is Danny Trejo, perhaps a name you don’t recall but a face you have definitely seen somewhere, who plays Harold’s father-in-law. Here is a guy on the level of a Christopher Walken or a Sam Rockwell that makes me smile simply by showing up. He sets the plot in motion by letting Harold know that it is a crime against Christmas to decorate a faux tree instead of a real one and sharing how his mother was killed by a Korean street gang while walking home with Christmas tree decorations. Harold better have a real tree to decorate by the time everybody gets back from midnight mass, or else! For the record, we get to see all of Danny Trejo’s tattoos and they are still super bad-ass. Then, of course, stopping in for a musical number and to save the day is the actor Neil Patrick Harris as Neil Patrick Harris, the actor. This calls for an explanation because as you may recall NPH was shotgunned to death while escaping from a Texan whorehouse in the second movie. If he can be believed, he is back on Earth via some sort of divine cockblock. I’m not explaining that any further as it might spoil the outrageous of it all, but will mention that it is hilarious.

There is something rather special about NPH’s performances in these movies. The big joke is that he is playing “himself.” So when we see him snorting cocaine and employing hookers, he is basically winking at the camera and saying that he, NPH of Doogie Houser M.D. fame, does all of that in “real life.” It is his “reputation” that he is bravely throwing under the bus for our amusement, sort of. One of the more outrageous things about NPH is that he is simply pretending to be a homosexual in public in order to sexually harass women. He does this by inviting the actresses he works with into his dressing room to rehearse scenes, remarking how tense they look, offering a massage to loosen them up, and innocently remarking that he is just one of the “girls” when things start getting weird. According to him, most publicly “gay” guys do this and Clay Aiken is the worst. All of this is done with such a gleeful and brazen smugness that it somehow completely obliterates the line of what should probably be very offensive. The sexual harassment is funny not because sexual harassment is funny. It’s funny because the “real” NPH would never do that, and we “know” that he is only “pretending” to be a sex fiend even though up on the screen is NPH is playing NPH, “himself,” as a sex fiend. It is a brilliant piece of comic misdirection, which makes NPH’s entire performance feel like it is getting away with something (which he is!). It’s on the level with Robert Downey Jr. getting away with wearing blackface in “Tropic Thunder.” As Mel Brooks would say, “It rises below vulgarity.” It’s a great character and performance and NPH should get an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Other jokes that perhaps they only sort of get away with are all the ethnic stereotypes. I say sort of because the variety of stereotypes make them okay simply because everybody (White, Asian, Indian, Jewish, Russian, Black) is being targeted. However, there are still plenty of these jokes that fall flat because they are just old. A general rule of humor is that jokes should never be told twice. I have heard the “All Asians look alike,” joke about a thousand times. The one in this movie I saw coming miles away. Saying Asians all look the same is a lazy joke nowadays. It’s time we came up with a new way to make fun of Asian people.

Finally the 3D employed in the movie is probably how 3D should be used: and by that I mean, as a joke. 3D generally speaking is more distracting than engrossing and as such should be used to break the 4^th wall, not to simply supplement a story. There are plenty of 3D jokes in this movie. Some are better than others. On the whole though, it is not worth the extra money to see a 3D movie in a theater. You would have as much fun with this one if you saw it streaming on Netflix.