There’s nothing like friends for Christmas – especially when it’s Harold & Kumar

“A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR CHRISTMAS”

Blu-ray widescreen, 3-D widescreen, DVD widescreen, and Ultraviolet digital, 2011, R for strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violence

Best extra: “Bringing Harold & Kumar Claymation to Life,” an extremely brief look at a zany sequence

HOW PROUD Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass would be to see their wonderful world of Claymation brought to the big screen ‒ in 3-D no less! (Actually, they might spin in their graves given the nature of how a certain body part pops out in 3-D.) Nonetheless, in high-definition, the Claymation scene and others starring the beloved stoners who brought us “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” should rock your raunchy world.

Kumar (Kal Penn) and Harold (John Cho) find themselves reunited after their friendship wanes, ditching their new besties to find a last minute Christmas tree. Harold needs a replacement after a monstrous joint ignites the tree his intimidating father-in-law (Danny Trejo) has meticulously been growing for eight years. You can only guess what antics take place as they scour New York City for a tree, including a run-in with Neil Patrick Harris, who has added such fun to Harold and Kumar’s previous movies.

Unfortunately, this review is not based on the 3-D version, although it’s easy to tell when 3-D comes into play – and quite extraordinarily at that. It’s an entertaining, hysterical way to place sight gags.

The New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. release can quickly warm the cockles of your heart if you let it, now and every year at Christmas. The Blu-ray transfer is not impeccable but good enough, and the DTS-HD Master Audio runs acoustic circles around any comedy out there. Submerse yourself in the mania that is Harold and Kumar because you definitely won’t be dipping deep into the limited bonus features. Still, they’re in high-definition and include an extra six minutes on an extended cut that, unfortunately, offers only a standard Dolby Digital surround track, a handful of deleted scenes and nine minutes of riffs with Tom Lennon (who plays Harold’s new sidekick, Todd).

As for the “Claymation” bonus, even at four minutes there’s a sense of where the idea came from. You also get a picture-in-picture look at the final version versus the storyboards used to visualize the scene.

Who needs extras when you have the laughs?

— Toni Guagenti

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