Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, A

John Cho and Kal Penn reprise their title roles in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, which comes after the 2004 cult hit Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, followed by Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay in 2008. Following years of growing apart, Harold Lee (Cho) and Kumar Patel (Penn) have replaced each other with new friends and are preparing for their respective Yuletide celebrations. But when a mysterious package mistakenly arrives at Kumar's door on Christmas Eve, his attempt to redirect it to Harold's house ends with the "high-grade" contents—and Harold's father-in-law's prize Christmas tree—going up in smoke. With his in-laws out of the house for the day, Harold decides to cover his tracks, rather than come clean. Reluctantly embarking on another ill-advised journey with Kumar through New York City, their search for the perfect replacement tree takes them through party heaven—and almost blows Christmas Eve sky high. (Gary Reber)

Special features include the featurettes Through The Haze With Tom Lennon (HD 08:29) and Bringing Harold And Kumar Claymation To Life (HD 03:32), three deleted scenes (HD 03:48), up-front previews, an UltraViolet digital copy, and BD-Live functionality.

The 1080p MVC picture is a 3-D adventure like no other. Shot in native 3D with a clay stop motion animation sequence by House Special, the sense of dimensional realism is convincing, especially with regard to weed smoke, which permeates nearly throughout. As for the picture quality attributes, they essentially live up to the 2-D performance quality, with the added sense of natural dimensional space, depth, and perspective. The color palette, as with the 2-D version, is vividly hued and bright, and when a bit exaggerated, is more engaging. While there is a fine veneer of grain, resolution remains impressive throughout, with fine detail exhibited in facial features, hair, clothing, and object texture. Contrast is excellent, with deep, solid blacks and revealing shadow delineation in dimly lit scenes. Fleshtones are rendered with varied tonality to depict natural characteristics. As for the 3-D effect, both positive and negative parallax imagery is well balanced, to deliver a pleasing natural dimensional and spatial experience, both in terms of in-screen and out-of-screen action. In particular, out-of-screen shenanigans are in your face, but all in fun. Depth and perspective is outstanding and serves to cast a real sense of natural spatial integrity and realism in scope and scale. There are no distractions or noticeable crosstalk or ghosting artifacts. This is a great-looking 3-D visual experience that is not afraid to use in-your-face visual antics in the name of humor. (Gary Reber)

The DTS-HD Master Audio™ 5.1-channel soundtrack is limited to the 3-D theatrical version, not the extended version, which is encoded in 448 kbps Dolby® Digital. The lossless track is sort of wild in its diversity of music, with orchestral music and hip-hop segmenting with loud Christmas themes. Still, the diversity and dynamic impact is fun induced and enhanced with punchy and deep .1 LFE bass energy. Atmospherics and sound effects are really energized with an aggressive, directionalized soundfield presence, including strong, immersive surround envelopment. Dialogue is always intelligible but at times wanting in spatial integration. This is a fun sonic adventure that perfectly complements the outrageous shenanigans. (Gary Reber)