MOVIE REVIEWS: A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3-D CHRISTMAS

The third Harold & Kumar movie is in 3D — and that technology is sent up for laughs by the writers and stars, John Cho and Kal Penn in A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas. “Leave it to a Harold & Kumar’ movie to expose modern 3D for the tawdry gimmick it is while understanding that’s at least half the enjoyment,” writes Ty Burr in the Boston Globe. At one point in the film, Harold asks, “Hasn’t the whole 3D thing jumped the shark by now?” Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer answers that question this way: “Yes, it has. But as deployed, 1950s-style, in this geek Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis romp with pot and peyote and ecstasy in place of Johnnie Walker, it taps the funnybone. The 3D jokes are reliably funny.” And Claudia Puig in USA Today observes, “While it mocks 3D technology, it also makes relatively fresh use of it.” Several critics note that the movie delivers gags as fast as any in the Airplane series. “Not all the gags work,” writes Lou Lumenick in the New York Post, “but there are moments of brilliance.” There are also enough ethnic gags to offend just about every minority (despite the fact that Penn is the son of Indian immigrants and Cho was born in South Korea). Roger Ebert, who writes one of the few negative reviews of the movie, remarks, “It’s not that I was particularly offended; it’s that I didn’t laugh very much.”