DVD review-A very Harold and Kumar Christmas

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas is the third adventure from the stoner duo 20130102-091551.jpgand for some reason has taken two years, to arrive on DVD.

The movie is set six years after their escape from Guantanamo bay. They’ve drifted apart, Harold (John Cho) is now married to Maria (Paula Garces) living in a nice house and is working for a successful company on Wall Street. Harold and Maria are planning a nice quiet Christmas with her intimidating father (Danny Trejo).

Meanwhile Kumar (Kal Penn) is still living in the same old apartment, but he has new younger friend. After failing a drug test, Kumar was kicked out of medical school and has slowly become a complete wreck. One day a package addressed to Harold arrives at his door, Kumar takes it to his house, where they have an awkward Reunion. The Christmas tree that Harold’s father-in-law brought for the occasion, is accidentally set on fire and in order to save Christmas, the dynamic duo have to find an identical tree before 2am, when everyone else returns from midnight Mass.

More than anything, these movies rely on the chemistry between everybody involved and, everybody involved works amazingly well. In the hands of lesser writers or actors, Harold and Kumar could be very two-dimensional, but both actors show the depths of their characters and both characters are extremely likeable.

This franchise always offers moments of absurd and unconventional humour. There’s a scene where our heroes get mistaken for actors and end up in a musical with Neil Patrick Harris, who explains how he came back from the dead and hilariously spoofs his own coming out, it was all a PR stunt. At another point, they’re drinks are spiked and they suffer some violent hallucinations, which render them in Claymation.

On its cinematic release the title of the film was ‘A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas’. The movie makes fun of itself for being in 3D, which is funny, but it falls a bit flat when watching the 2D version, but it doesn’t distract you too much. There isn’t a lot of substance here, but there doesn’t have to be. It takes a real genius to do dumb humour so well. If you’ve had a long-hard day at work, come home and stick this in. In the words of Neil Patrick Harris “I’ll see you in the 4th”.

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