A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas Review!

Here we go with my first Christmas movie review of the season and the highly anticipated third film in the Harold and Kumar series.  Like many of the fans of this series, I never saw the first in the theater.  If I recall I think it looked funny and ended up renting it on dvd when it came out and have been sold since that day.  The second film upped the level of craziness and I was stoked when I heard that their would be a third film.  I must say that I was a little concerned when I learned that it would be a Christmas film. Harold, Kumar, weed smoking and Santa Claus?  Can the third film take Harold and Kumar to the next level or are we finally going to be burned out?  I will try and keep the next couple of paragraphs as spoiler free as possible but be for-warned.

HK3 was written by John Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg and directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson.  The previous 2 writers wrote the other HK movies which is a good thing!  It stars John Cho and Kal Penn along with Paula Garces as Harold's wife Maria and Danneel Harris as Vanessa, Kumar's girlfriend.  This episode introduces us to Thomas Lennon as Harold's new best friend and Amir Blumenfeld as Adrian, Kumar's new best friend.  We also are teased with one shot cameos from many old faces such as Bobby Lee, Neil Patrick Harris, David Krumholtz and Eddie Kaye Thomas.  Danny Trejo is introduced as the hard ass Korean hating father in law of Harold.

So here we go.  It's been several years since we have last seen H&K and times have changed. Harold is a mature and responsible adult married to his dream girl Maria.  He has an assistant, Bobby Lee, from the first H&K and is living the dream.  Kumar has done nothing but smoke weed and put on weight.  They haven't spoken in 2 years and have no plans of speaking anytime soon. By circumstances uncontrolled by our duo they are forced to search for a Christmas tree in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve before Maria and her family return from midnight mass.

Does this film follow the general formula as the others?  Yes, more or less.  The reality of this film is that people change and they do grow up eventually and make other friends in life.  What is important is to never forget the ones that mean the most to you.  Oh, and smoke weed while your at it.  That is pretty much the bottom line of this film.  It's no Christmas Vacation but it serves the purpose well enough and I think that as the Christmas season rolls along this film will garner more money.

With that aside.  Here are some of my complaints.  I wanted more.  I want more dammit!  I want more NPH.  I want more of the crazy neighbors down the hall Rosenberg and Goldstein.  Where is "Weedy", the giant bag of weed from the first two films?  Thomas Lennon was funny as Harold's friend and father to the crazy little girl who always keeps getting douched with illegal drugs.  Amir Blumenfeld did nothing but annoy the hell out of me through the whole thing.  I was hoping he was going to be killed by the end of the film.  I felt like a lot of the funny scenes I had already seen from the numerous trailers that were released.  I hate it when movie studios do that!  On a side note, Elias Koteas, plays a Russian mob boss and kind of the baddy in the film, kinda.  I felt like this part was written with the hope that Christopher Meloni would return but he was absent.

"Absent" is a good word for this movie.  Did Harold and Kumar pull it off?  Was it a funny movie? YES!  They did!  It was a funny movie and the 3D was surprisingly pretty cool and worked for the film.  My biggest complaint is that I felt like their could have been more.  It seemed rushed like the only actors that really had the time to make this film was the original duo.  Everyone else is just kinda thrown in and that is it. If your looking for a dirty, nasty Christmas movie then this is for you. Go see it!  Can it wait until dvd and blu-ray?  Well, the question there is do you want to watch a holiday movie in the spring?  I doubt it.  If you have the inkling to see it then go see it before Christmas and enjoy it!