'Harold & Kumar 3D': Still dumb and funny
In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, John Cho, left, and Kal Penn are shown in a scene from "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas." Credit: AP
If only all Hollywood films invested as much time and money into 3-D effects as "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas." As it is, the third installment in this stoner-comedy franchise offers some of the year's best 3-D visuals, though mostly in the service of smoke rings and body parts. Perhaps more care could have been taken with the script, but then this wouldn't be a "Harold & Kumar" movie, would it?
As dependably dumb and fitfully funny as its predecessors, the movie picks up a few years after 2008's "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," with the title characters now estranged. Harold Lee (John Cho) is a Wall Street whiz hounded by protesters but otherwise content; he's now married to Maria (Paula Garces). Kal Penn plays Kumar Patel as a hopelessly arrested adolescent (in contrast to his real-life career, which included a stint in President Barack Obama's White House). When Kumar brings Harold a misdelivered package on Christmas Eve, the old friends are pulled into another misadventure.
The plot involves Maria's snarling father (Danny Trejo, "Machete"), the destruction of his prized Christmas tree and the frantic search to replace it, but the movie is really a series of skits: a beer-pong match against grade-schoolers, a drug trip depicted in Claymation and the shocking truth about Neil Patrick Harris (returning as himself). Tom Lennon (Comedy Central's "Reno 911!") and Amir Blumenfeld (MTV's "Pranked") play two nerdy new friends.
As with the original film (2004's "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle"), the sequel is best when it mocks racism by embracing it. Maria's Mexican family is absurdly large; RZA plays a fake "angry black guy," and David Krumholtz resurfaces as Goldstein, whose conversion to Christianity has freed him of Jewish neuroses ("I've made some terrible investments; doesn't bother me a bit"). Those smart moments make all the bong jokes worth it.
PLOT The now-estranged stoners reunite for more high adventure.
RATING R
CAST John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Tom Lennon
LENGTH 1:29
PLAYING AT Area theaters
BOTTOM LINE More hits than misses in this dependably dopey yuk-fest. Great 3-D effects, too.
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