A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

The cynics among us look to the time period from November 1 – December 26 as one of the most obnoxious times of the year.  Before our palettes can even be whetted by the enviable choice between white meat or dark meat, advertisers are already jumping at the chance to dance on Halloween's grave by shoving Christmas commercials and sales down our throats. 

Movie buffs can certainly relate.  Substitute that two month stretch at the end of the fourth quarter with all year around and Christmas commercials with 3D movies, and you've got the cinematic equivalent of corporations shamelessly cramming unwanted trends down our throats. 

Some of us choose to get angry at this blatant consumerism; adamantly flipping channels when we hear even a hint of jingle bells or smashing away furiously at the keyboard to blog demeaningly about why 3D is the worst thing to happen to movies since Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.  But where does anger get us?  Why not choose the high(er) road and go the way of writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg by making fun of it?

Ever since they escaped from Guantanamo Bay, the paths of Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) have diverged significantly: Harold has given up smoking weed, works on Wall Street and lives in an affluent suburb with his smoking hot wife, Maria (Paula Garcés), while Kumar smokes his life away in a shit hole apartment, caught mentally and financially off guard when his ex, Vanessa (Danneel Ackles), announces she's pregnant with his child.  The two former best friends haven't spoken in years and couldn't be further apart.

But when a package addressed to Harold shows up at Kumar's door, the two find themselves brought back together once again.  Unfortunately, the path that leads them together is paved with destruction, as Kumar inadvertently burns down the prize Christmas tree of Mr. Perez (Danny Trejo), Harold's father-in-law whose love for Christmas is matched only by his dislike for his son-in-law.  And so, on Christmas Eve, the two walking disasters set out to find a replacement tree before Harold's in-laws return from midnight mass on a quest that includes a drug addicted toddler, a sociopathic Ukrainian gangster, a shotgun blast to Santa Claus' face, a talking robot that makes waffles, plenty of political incorrectness and, of course, Neil Patrick Harris.

SPOILER ALERT: A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is not high art.  Take a minute to collect yourself after that startling revelation.  Any film that includes scenes of a toddler ingesting marijuana smoke, cocaine AND ecstasy won't be remembered come Oscar season, but that's okay, because it doesn't have to be.  Too many unintentionally stupid films get an unwarranted pass under the superficial "you have to turn off your brain" excuse, but when it comes to Harold & Kumar 3D, the stupidity is not only intentional, but entirely justified. 

I'm a guy that loves Christmas, but even I have to admit that the post-Halloween marketing is aggressive and unceasing to the point of nausea.  The studios' push for 3D is equally egregious.  These points aren't lost on Hurwitz and Schlossberg who have taken the opportunity to bite – or perhaps, nibble at – the hand that feeds by using their medium to show just how stupid both trends are.  The fact that Harold and Kumar's quest revolves around the obsession to possess a Christmas tree – perhaps the most recognizable Yuletide symbol – says something about the extremes we'll go through to have the "perfect" Christmas while the blatant overuse of the 3D that punctuates their journey adds something about the ridiculous obsession with the visual gimmick. 

Admittedly, as one would expect from a film with "Harold & Kumar" in the title, the film is chock full of dick jokes, gaggles of women's breasts, gratuitous drug use and opportunities to poke fun of just about every race and religious group imaginable, so there's no way you'll be elevating its social commentary to the level of Dr. Strangelove.  But make no mistake – Harold & Kumar 3D, like Dr. Strangelove, IS satire and all the insensitivity is played so over the top that there's no way any cognizant human being could mistake it for genuine intolerance.  After all, how can you take a movie too seriously when it features Neil Patrick Harris lampooning the image that has become Neil Patrick Harris? 

In a way, the work of the writers reminds me of the work of Mike Judge, specifically the criminally under-appreciated Beavis & Butthead.  Much of the criticism leveled against that show was directed at its stupidity, but many of those people don't consider that you have to be incredibly smart to write stupid convincingly; the kind of stupid that realizes what we're paying attention to and why it's not worth the attention.  In the world that Hurwitz and Schlossberg have created, no one is safe, but it's nice to know there are people out there not willing to let us get too complacent with our traditions and, more importantly, ourselves.