‘Hasn’t the whole 3-D thing jumped the shark by now?’’ asks a character in the often clever and intermittently hilarious stoner comedy “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.’’
I’d answer arguably yes, which makes this a perfect time to send up stereographic photography by hurling copious quantities of drugs, bodily fluids, candy canes and other wholly unexpected projectiles into the audience’s faces.
Fair warning that this second sequel to “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle’’ (yes, they return) goes out of its way to offend virtually everyone, including Mexicans, Jews, African- Americans and especially evangelical Christians. In addition to topless nuns, Jesus makes an appearance, accompanied by a pair of topless female angels, picks up a house phone and says, “Dad, I need a favor.’’
I haven’t even mentioned one character’s plans to deflower a teenager named Mary on Christmas Eve, a raunchy twist on the famous tongue-freezing scene in “A Christmas Story’’ — or the toddler who moves in the course of one evening from pot to cocaine to ecstasy.
These gags are hung like decorations on a plot that serves to spoof those dreadful holiday comedies like “Christmas With the Kranks.’’
Three years after sharing a joint with George W. Bush in the less funny “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay,’’ the more straightlaced Harold (John Cho) works on Wall Street, where he faces protesters who hurl eggs and less pleasant substances into the camera.
Married and living in suburban New Jersey, Harold has cut himself off from the disaster-prone Kumar (Kal Penn) — until his stoner pal arrives bearing a giant spliff that destroys a 12-foot fir custom grown by his ferocious father-in-law (Danny Trejo), who’s arrived on Christmas Eve with a literal busload of Mexican relatives.
Soon Harold and Kumar’s quest for a replacement brings them to Manhattan (portrayed, with a wink, by Michigan locations), and results in encounters with a Ukrainian gangster, a “Scarface’’-like blizzard of cocaine (accompanied by “White Christmas’’ on the soundtrack) and an accidental drive-by shooting of Santa.
Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who wrote the first two films (and directed the second) will do pretty much anything for a laugh, including referring to Penn’s real-life tenure as an advisor to President Obama. I was mildly disappointed that Hugh Laurie’s Dr. House didn’t turn up to assist Kumar in patching up Santa.
Not all of the gags work — like a waffle- making robot or casting Tom Lennon as an Ed Helms-like character for a superfluous homage to the “Hangover” movies.
But there are moments of brilliance, like a claymation sequence that manages to simultaneously send up ’60s holiday cartoons and “Ghostbusters’’ (with Frosty the Snowman instead of Marshmallow Man).
There are a few lulls in Todd Strauss- Schulson’s direction, as the film reaches a climax in which our heroes play wooden soldiers in a musical production number with Neil Patrick Harris and a chorus line of ersatz Rockettes.
It’s hard to top that, but “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas’’ manages — with Harris (who plays, as usual, a twisted version of himself) “revealing” he’s only pretending to be gay to make it with the ladies.