Two weeks ago, America was scandalized by news that Kal Penn, the associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, is leaving his post to star in A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas, the third installment in the stoner-comedy series. It must take a pretty good script to lure such a dedicated public servant as Penn from his job and country, right? Well, we’ve procured a copy and our review is after the jump. Mild spoilers ahead!
Weighing in at 119 pages, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg’s screenplay (dated January 22, 2010) finds Harold and Kumar in their 30s and no longer on speaking terms (at script’s beginning, it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other). Harold is a married, drug-free, Wall Street executive who lives in a home that looks “more like a house in a Nancy Myers movie than the man-cave he shared with Kumarâ€; Kumar is single, still lives in the man-cave, and has recently had his medical license suspended for smoking marijuana. The pair are reunited when a package intended for Harold arrives at their old apartment and Kumar delivers it to his house. While there, in a pot-related mishap, Kumar burns down a Christmas tree grown special by Harold’s father-in-law, requiring the two to strike out in search of a replacement.
What follows is another loosely glued-together batch of dick and weed jokes that should satisfy fans of 2004’s improbably great H&K Go to White Castle and really delight anyone who liked 2008’s not-quite-as-funny sequel H&K Escape From Guantanamo Bay. Along for the ride this time are waffle-making robots (“It’s this year’s hot new toy — Wafflebot!â€), a drug-taking infant who makes the baby from The Hangover look like a huge prude, and, of course, Neil Patrick Harris, who returns despite his having been shot to death outside of a whorehouse in H&K 2. There’s also a small role written for Kelly Ripa, as NPH’s co-host for a TV Christmas special, that we kinda doubt she’ll take (but really hope she does!).
New Line is reportedly “seriously considering†shooting the film in 3-D, and what makes this idea seem slightly less stupid is the script’s five-page claymation sequence in which Harold and Kumar, high on psychoactive eggnog, are chased through midtown Manhattan by a giant evil snowman:
Evil Frosty grabs snow from his gut and forms a GIANT SNOWBALL. He speaks in A LOUD VOICE THAT SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER…
EVIL FROSTY
Allow me to break the ice!!!
KUMAR
Is he quoting Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin?
Just then, Evil Frosty hurls the snowball…
HAROLD
Dude, look out!
Harold pushes Kumar and they both fall to the ground. The snowball just misses them. It hits a car and totals it.
In summation, it’s too bad we’ll have to wait until “holiday season 2011 or 2012†to see this thing, but Kal Penn is totally doing America proud.