Review: "A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas" Delivers a Few Easy Laughs (and a 3D Gay Kiss for NPH)

I know, I know - writing a review of A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (in 3D!) is kind of like writing a letter to the editor of The Onion. This rude, gleefully offensive movie is what it is, and it doesn't really care what anyone has to say about it - and if it did, it would probably have its fingers crossed for "Eeewwwww...."

The threequel to the cult hit stoner comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and the atrocious misfire of a political satire Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, VH&KC is probably, by objective standards, the best film of the three. Of course, that's kind of like picking a "most culturally relevant Kardashian sister," but there you go. A foul-mouthed, drug-fueled, girl-crazy adventure involving showering nuns, cocaine snowstorms and teenage girls looking to lose their virginity, it's probably the filthiest, frattiest Christmas movie ever made.

So why are we writing about it here?

Three letters: NPH.

Neil Patrick Harris as Neil Patrick Harris

Yes, New Gay Hope Neil Patrick Harris - whose involvement in this series has played a significant role in his rise to ubiquity - is back again, and in a single sequence manages to not only steal the entire movie, but also to pull off one of the most subversive gags in the whole series. And to put that in context, we're talking about movies that have featured George W. Bush getting stoned, coke-crazed toddlers, and Santa getting shot in the face.

VH&KC is at the most basic level not that different from Christmas Vacation, Four Christmases or any of the other broad comedies set around the holidays. It's got all the holiday touchstones (Santas, a search for a tree, sappy overtones of forgiveness and family) but they're thrown wildly off-key when couched in a decidedly modern framework.

Examples: Harold (John Cho) is now a Wall Street exec dealing with egg-throwing protesters furious with what they consider to be his ill-gotten success. A few Jewish characters from the other films reappear, but one has converted to Catholicism - and yes, this Christmas film manages to be equal-opportunity offensive to both Christians AND Jews. And a search for a Christmas tree winds up involving African American businessmen who jokingly trade off playing good cop/bad cop (or, more specifically, thug/Cosby), out-of-control rich Manhattan teenager parties, midnight masses that you have to buy tickets to, and a robot that makes waffles.

And before I forget, let me mention that I totally. Want. A Waffelbot.

Shoehorned into all of this proudly tasteless but relatively toothless madness is NPH, who in the film is starring in a musical Christmas Spectacular production in Manhattan (it's never named but it's clearly supposed to be the Radio City show). When H&K accidentally wind up on stage with NPH (in a fully-realized 3D musical sequence), they discover that he's actually NOT dead (he was shot to bits in the last film but was sent back for somewhat amusing reasons that I'll leave him to explain) and is back to his womanizing, drug-crazed ways.

If you're new to these films, I'll explain: Back in 2004 when the first H&K came out, NPH was not out. He was also not terribly popular - he was working on stage and screen but most people knew him as "that kid who played Doogie Howser". So when he took the role of himself as a sex-crazed, crack-addicted hetero party boy, it was funny enough to audiences but probably even funnier to anyone who actually knew that in real life he was very nice, very mild-mannered, and very, very gay.

The sequel furthered the mythical NPH character (unicorn!) without acknowledging that by this point he had come out in real life as a gay man. But in this film, they work his real-life persona into the story, making for one of the most bizarre and edgy scenes in the film. In VH&KC, NPH has come out as gay - we see him walking down the hall with his real-life partner, David Burtka, talking to the press. They even kiss for the cameras (In a fratboy stoner movie, let's not forget. In 3D.), and it's worth pointing out that while the audience actually BOOED the gay kiss that comes at the end of the second film at the screening I attended, here no one reacted negatively.

Except for NPH and David, that is - because the moment they're behind closed doors both wipe their mouths like they've just spent Seven Minutes in Heaven with the Grinch.