Showing posts with label thomas lennon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thomas lennon. Show all posts

Sunday, 31 August 2025

Netflix And Chill: Taxi (2004)

An American remake of an action comedy from the late 1990s, one written by no less than Luc Besson, Taxi has a good bit of talent behind the camera. Tim Story is the director, and the screenplay is from Robert Ben Garant, Jim Kouf, and Thomas Lennon. It's just a shame that Jimmy Fallon is one of the leads.

Queen Latifah is Isabelle 'Belle' Williams, a woman who is at the very start of her career as a taxi driver. She has spent years being a courier, and has even managed to get caught speeding while whizzing about on her bicycle. She's a very talented driver, and very quick. That's why she proves to be a useful asset when a police officer named Andrew Washburn (Fallon) jumps into the back of her cab and asks her to head to the site of a nearby bank robbery. Williams and Washburn end up working together on the case, although it's not made official. But it might take a speedy and slick taxi driver to catch a speedy and slick getaway driver. 

Despite the work of the writers, there's nothing very witty or entertaining here, not outwith the stunt driving anyway. A large part of that is due to the screenplay just being a bit too thin, but I think the problem is almost equally down to having Fallon in the role of Washburn. While I can tolerate him in some of his TV spots, Fallon has never done enough in movies to fully win me over, which is a major hurdle when he's given a lead role.

Queen Latifah certainly tries her best to balance out the awfulness of Fallon though, and she's fantastic in her role (as she has been in many of the movies she has starred in). She cannot carry the whole film on her shoulders though, and that's what is being asked of her. Henry Simmons isn't too bad, playing her partner, and Ann-Margret has fun in her scenes, but Jennifer Esposito, Gisele Bündchen, and everyone else are just disappointing non-entities.

Similar to so many other American remakes of “foreign-language” originals, Taxi succeeds when it replicated the scenes that worked just as well in the original, but falters in the attempts to make everything more appealing to mainstream American audiences. You can watch this and not hate it. You’re unlikely to enjoy it as much as the first film though, as long as you can overcome the teeny tiny obstacle of subtitles.

This review may not have given you anything substantial to digest. Nor does the movie. I'm happy enough to have been critical without being too insulting. I'd encourage people to check out almost anything else directed by Tim Story, or indeed anything else starring Queen Latifah.  

4/10

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Sunday, 13 April 2025

Netflix And Chill: Unfrosted (2024)

Please feel free to read the following in the style of an exaggerated Jerry Seinfeld impression. What's the deal with non-bread breakfast that you put into the toaster? We have bread for that. Oh, you want fruity goodness too? Put some jam on top. Got a sweet tooth? Add chocolate spread. Want it all feeling as if you have some kind of acceptable hot pocket to start the day with? Just fold it over. But no, someone had to go and invent Pop-Tarts, a filled pastry product made by popping it into your toaster.

A satirical look at the breakfast cereal landscape, and the creation and marketing of the Pop-Tart, Unfrosted is directed by Jerry Seinfeld, stars Jerry Seinfeld in the main role of Bob Cabana, and was written by Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Andy Robin, and Barry Marder. While it doesn't really help anyone to understand the landscape of breakfast brand creation and marketing, it certainly helps people to understand why Seinfeld seems to have spent the last few years going on about people not being able to just be funny any more. While constantly bemoaning a cultural landscape that he believes is restricting and throttling comedians, Seinfeld has really been signifying to us all that he is just no longer all that funny. And Unfrosted proves that.

Look, I'm no comedian (successful or otherwise), and I have had nowhere near the amount of experience that Seinfeld has. But has Seinfeld actually done much on his own to allow himself to be positioned as some wise commentator on the state of society as a whole, and how it has specifically affected comedy? I am going to say no. Seinfeld is a half-decent stand-up comic who has had his greatest achievements due to the work of other people, whether that is Larry David behind the scenes or the co-stars that we all think of when we think of Seinfeld. And that's a show named after himself.

But let's get back to Unfrosted, as unfunny and charmless as it is. Aside from Seinfeld in his main role, the cast also includes Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Christian Slater, Melissa McCarthy, Cedric The Entertainer, Thomas Lennon, James Marsden, Tony Hale, Hugh Grant, and many more. Everyone gets a moment, with the slight and silly plot just used as a framework to jump from one selection of gags to the next, but only a select few can do enough to rise above the material. Schumer isn't bad, McCarthy is as much fun as she usually is (I'm a fan, but that statement will also help those who dislike her usual schtick know that they can avoid this), Slater is a lot of fun as a threatening milkman, and Bill Burr is very funny in his portrayal of JFK. It's Grant who steals the film though, looking slightly shame-faced as a classical actor hiding away inside the suit of Tony The Tiger, that well-known breakfast cereal mascot who assured us all that the bowl we were served every morning tasted "grrrrrrrrrreat."

I'm sure that everyone involved in this had fun. There are so many people popping up for one or two scenes, so many different ideas and gags added to the mix, that it feels as if someone came up with the premise to simply gather friends together and have a lot of fun. Good for them. It doesn't translate to a fun viewer experience though. Did I laugh a few times? Yes. Did I hate the whole thing? No. It just all seemed so random and pointless though, and as smug as many other Seinfeld appearances I have seen in recent years (whether he's having coffee in cars with someone much funnier than himself or being interviewed about how he and his peers can no longer deliver jokes to audiences who just don't recognise comedy any more).

People can still very much recognise comedy. It's just that people no longer recognise some of Seinfeld's material as being very funny. Maybe it never was, considering how he has spent his career surrounding himself with layers of other people's talent, or maybe I'm just judging him too harshly after having wasted 97 minutes of my time on this nonsense.

3/10

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Saturday, 13 January 2024

Shudder Saturday: Destroy All Neighbors (2024)

While not the first feature film from Josh Forbes (that was Contracted: Phase II, back in 2015), Destroy All Neighbors feels like a more pure vision. It's a horror comedy that you just know wouldn't be made if everyone involved didn't have a firm belief in the fact that they were making something unique and worthwhile. As the repeated mantra throughout the movie states: "not everyone will get it, but the right ones will." 

Jonah Ray plays William Brown, a struggling prog-rock musician who believes that he has a great album bubbling just beneath his skin, but isn't quite able to get everything in order to get a recording that matches his thoughts. His partner, Emily, (Kiran Deol), tries to remain as supportive as she can, but there are signs of strain. And that strain increases when William is perturbed by a very noisy new neighbour, Vlad (Alex Winter, under a lot of impressive make up). Eventually arguing with Vlad about the situation, William then accidentally kills him. That isn't the only death he ends up causing. What's worse is that the dead people seem to be just as active as they were when alive.

Written by Charles A. Pieper, Jared Logan, and Mike Benner (the latter two already credited with a decent selection of comedy material), Destroy All Neighbors is a film you could probably most accurately describe as daffy. Everything is over the top, from the main characters to the wonderful practical effects, and the plot is a simple mix of gore gags and Tenacious D. In fact, this would pair up surprisingly well with Freaked (although that is a better film), and I think that makes it obvious why Winter got involved. It's a shame that things weren't shown in a way that could make us doubt the viewpoint of the lead character a bit more, although some might argue that the inherently wild nature of the unfolding events should make us doubt that viewpoint anyway, but this is a very fun time for those who don't mind their horror comedies taking the time to be extra silly.

Forbes directs well enough, and helps himself immensely by delivering a runtime that clocks in under the 90-minute mark. The pacing isn't perfect, it feels as if each main act has at least one scene that runs a bit too long, but everything and everyone is moved into place nicely enough, helping to build up the many gags and underline the impact of a very satisfying finale.

Ray is very good in the main role, the typical schlub who ends up in a big mess he has to pro-actively deal with after years spent simply reacting, or not, to various levels of mistreatment from those around him. Deol has less to do, but she's rewarded with a couple of moments at the very end of the movie that allow her to add to the fun of the whole thing. Winter is having a blast (whether covered in all that make up or making a cameo as our lead's lawyer), as are both Thomas Lennon and Ryan Kattner (who play a sound studio engineer and volatile musician, respectively), and there are also decent performances from Randee Heller, DeMorge Brown, and Christian Calloway, all playing other people who end up reaching their "final destination" as things get progressively worse and worse for our lead character. I'll also mention Jon Daly, Pete Ploszek, and, making an unexpected and unnecessary, but enjoyable, cameo, Kumail Nanjiani.

Ultimately just not as sharp as it could be. The thin plot stumbles from one gag to the next, and somehow the moments of inventive gore will make many viewers wish that everyone had tried to push things even further in the direction of insane bloodshed and comedy deaths, but it's enjoyable and endearing throughout, and the fact that it's so eager to please should gain it some goodwill from most people who decide to check it out. Not great, and I wanted to enjoy it more than I did, but best summed up by saying . . . "not everyone will get it, but the right ones will".

6/10

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Sunday, 8 November 2020

Netflix And Chill: How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (2003)

It had been quite some time since I had seen How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. The last time was certainly before the transformation of Matthew McConaughey from rom-com lead to versatile actor in more critically-appreciated fare. And here's the main thing I couldn't help thinking about while watching the movie; McConaughey is doing work here that is as good as work he has been doing in recent years. It's just a very different kind of performance, one that makes use of his innate charm and his ability to handle light comedy. I'm actually keen to check out a number of other McConaughey movies from this period, to see for myself whether or not I was being a bit unfair to just ignore them while the man was cashing those paychecks and laying the foundation for years in which he could make some more daring choices.

McConaughey plays Ben, an advertising executive who wants to be in charge of a large campaign selling diamonds. Ben doesn't seem to understand women, however, because he hasn't had a relationship that has lasted more than a few days. If he can meet a woman, and get her to fall in love with him, before a big event party then his boss may just let him head up the campaign. He is told to make his move on the lovely Andie (Kate Hudson). What he doesn't know is that Andie writes a "How To" column in a popular woman's magazine, and her latest project is "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days". Andie is about to test the waters, using every major faux pas committed by women who become too needy, clingy, and overbearing. Despite their agendas, Ben and Andie really start to warm to one another, and you know there will be a standard rom-com third act full of revelations, confrontations, and a race-against-time to fix some major damage.

Based on a book by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long, subtitled "The Universal Don'ts Of Dating", How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days is a self-aware and clever entry in the rom-com subgenre. The screenplay, by Kristen Buckley, Brian Regan, and Burr Steers, is very happy to hit all of the required beats while also letting the central characters try to push each other further and further apart as they feel themselves growing inexorably closer, emotionally.

Director Donald Petrie has a good handle on things (his varied filmography doesn't show this as a given, but he had a great double-whammy of Miss Congeniality and then this movie in the space of a few years) and he's helped by the assembled cast, with a number of wonderful supporting players orbiting our charismatic leads.

Hudson is perfect here, having a lot of fun as she goes more and more over the top in her "girlfriend from hell" guise and still radiant when her character is allowed to relax and not work on her agenda. McConaughey is his usual charming self, all abs and gleaming teeth and gentlemanly politeness and respect. Bebe Neuwirth and Robert Klein play the bosses of Hudson and McConaughey, respectively, and there are fun moments for Kathryn Hahn (the unlucky-in-love friend of Hudson, and inspiration for the article), Adam Goldberg, and Thomas Lennon (the latter two friends of McConaughey, hilarious when they get to look on and comment on their friend's disrupted "new life").

You can act snobbish and dismiss films like this easily enough. Okay, they are formulaic and predictable. But that doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable, especially when you have stars who so easily emanate such an air of, well, stardom. Sometimes it's a treat to watch actors you know disappear into roles that explore various facets of the human experience, and sometimes it's a treat to watch stars be stars.

7/10

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Friday, 25 October 2019

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

Although it absolutely perverts the essence of the characters that fans of the series have been invested in from the first movie, to varying degrees, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is a wonderful return to form for the series, and a fantastic way to reboot things after the tailspin of the past few years. Purists may balk at the puppets, and Toulon, now being on the side of the people they battled, and tried to stay ahead of, for so many years, but I would advise you to just get on board with the new direction and have fun. Because if this film has any purpose, it's to deliver fun.

Thomas Lennon is Edgar Easton, a man recovering at home with his parents after the end of his marriage. He finds a puppet in a box of belongings that used to belong to his younger brother, now deceased, and realises that it may be worth money. This leads to him heading along to a major auction, with a new lady by his side (Ashley, played by Jenny Pellicer), and his friend/boss Markowitz (Nelson Franklin). Unfortunately, so many of the puppets in the same place mean that things are, almost inevitably, about to get bloody and dangerous.

This is, arguably more than anything else, a reward for viewers who have stuck with the series through the many ups and downs. The script, by S. Craig Zahler, may not be as witty or smart as he possibly wanted it to be (although who knows what he was aiming for when crafting a Puppet Master script, it's not really the place to show off your best work), but that doesn't matter when the puppets go into crazy killer mode, the blood starts flowing, and everyone tries to figure out just what the hell is going on.

Directors Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund, familiar to horror fans who previously enjoyed Wither and Animalistic from them, do enough to ensure that viewers know who everyone is, and where they are in relation to the carnage, even in the most hectic sequences (and there are a couple of wonderfully over the top bloodbath moments). Once the gratuitous gore and nudity appears, it then becomes a constant factor right up until the end credits, with a lot of impressive practical effects bringing the wilder script moments to life.

Lennon looks a bit out of place in the lead role, but he doesn't do a bad job. I'm just so used to enjoying his comedic performances that it felt odd to see him in the midst of this (particularly THIS series). Pellicer is a fun female co-star alongside him, and Franklin gets to play irritating, while staying just tolerable enough to make him someone you root for in the second half. Udo Kier is our Toulon this time around, and he does well with a very different portrayal of the character, Michael Paré is a cop with no time for any of the nonsense he sees around him, and both Charlyne Yi and genre favourite Barbara Crampton do well in supporting roles.

If you've made it through the previous eleven movies then you'll welcome this like a cool drink of spring water after a journey through a scorched wasteland. If you're some casual latecomer then, well done, you can jump in and enjoy this as a standalone film. And everyone who made it through every previous instalment will glare at you with an expression of judgmental resentment and anger.

7/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.


Wednesday, 24 April 2019

Prime Time: Bad Teacher (2011)

Bad Teacher doesn't entirely work, mainly because it doesn't really spend enough time wallowing in the right kind of bad teacher behaviour, but I am surprised that it received the generally negative reaction that it did when first released. While not great, it IS good, and it IS funny.

Cameron Diaz stars as Elizabeth, a lazy teacher who is looking forward to marrying her rich fiancé and leaving working life behind her. Except that doesn't happen. So she's back at school for the next year, looking for ways to earn enough to pay for the boob job that she hopes will help her land another rich guy and allow her to live the comfortable, kept lifestyle that she years for. Her lessons consist of showing pupils films (Stand And Deliver, Lean On Me, Dangerous Minds) and she is happy to do even less than the bare minimum, until she hears about a cash prize for the teacher of the class with the best test results.

Written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (who previously worked together on Year One and the American version of The Office), this is most enjoyable when it is showing a character pushing things much further than any adult in a position of authority should. It's just a shame that they don't ever really risk pushing things towards darker, and potentially funnier, territory. This is a film that tries to be fun and edgy without ever being really becoming transgressive, which is understandable from a sales point of view but disappointing nonetheless.

Director Jake Kasdan does solid work, moving between a few of the bigger set-pieces (a car wash moment, a scheme to steal a test paper, the grand finale) briskly enough to ensure that the film doesn't overstay its welcome. It's a simple 90 minutes (give or take) of bawdy humour that does enough by the third act to have you rooting for the main character, despite her selfish and manipulative ways.

Diaz is a lot of fun in the lead role, whether she's trying to look wide-eyed and innocent or showing her true colours in amusing exchanges that leave others shocked. Lucy Punch is the other teacher who suspects that things are going very wrong in the classroom across the hall from her, John Michael Higgins is the Principal, and Phyllis Smith is a rather timid teacher who is also a friend, and unable to see the real badness of Diaz. All of them are great fun, as are Jason Segel and Justin Timberlake, two very different men who work at the school. The former is interested in Diaz while she, in turn, is looking to bag the latter (because his family has money). Thomas Lennon is as hilarious, as he so often is, in a small role, and all of the main child actors do well.

There are a number of mainstream comedies from the past few years that you could pick if you want more laughs, I can't deny that, but Bad Teacher is still good enough to pass some time and keep you amused. It's not ace . . . but it still makes the grade.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.



Monday, 25 August 2014

Rapture-Palooza (2013)

I initially dismissed Rapture-Palooza as nothing more than a retread of material that I'd already enjoyed in This Is The End (a movie that has crept up and up in my estimation after each repeat viewing). Thankfully, I heard from others that it was worth my time so I gave it a watch. And, whaddya know, it was worth my time.

Anna Kendrick stars as Lindsey Lewis, a young woman who ends up living through the rapture. Yes, lots of people have been taken up to heaven, but Lindsey isn't one of them. She spends her days with her boyfriend, Ben (John Francis Daley), avoiding fiery rocks that fall from the sky, trying to ignore foul-mouthed crows, despairing of her parents (Ana Gasteyer and John Michael Higgins), and generally having a pretty bad time of it. Then things get worse when she catches the eye of the antichrist (Craig Robinson).

Thanks, mainly, to a great cast, Rapture-Palooza provides a decent number of chuckles for those who are willing to go along with the bonkers premise. Kendrick is always a likable presence, Robinson is often very funny (and gets to play the antichrist as an amusing asshole), Rob Corddry is a lot of fun as Ben's father, a man who wants to keep his loved ones safe by going along with whatever the antichrist wants, and Thomas Lennon is someone else I always like to see onscreen, so I thoroughly enjoyed his turn as a passive, sweet zombie. Daley may not be on a par with those mentioned, but he does a perfectly fine job with his role. As well as Gasteyer and Higgin, there are chuckles raised by the likes of Calum Worthy, Ken Jeong, Paul Scheer and Tyler Labine in small roles.

Writer Chris Matheson has a lot of fun interpreting the rapture in a way that mixes traditional aspects with twists that provide a lot of little laughs. The movie may never feel bleak, but it does enough to let you know that the characters left alive on Earth are having a pretty miserable time of things.

Paul Middleditch does well in the director's chair, setting up the lunacy without leaving any gaps for viewers to start thinking about the whole thing, and ridiculing it, before settling down to the main core of the plot - a woman with a loving boyfriend who finds herself receiving unwanted attention from an evil, powerful man. The pacing is perfect, the special effects are fun and good enough for the material, and the whole thing deserves to be viewed as more than just a trip back to the well used by This Is The End. So give it a go soon, especially if you've been (like me) avoiding it for that very reason.

It helps, of course, if you like everyone involved. If you do, I pretty much guarantee that this will entertain you for 90 minutes. If you don't, well, you may want to keep this as a very low priority.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Rapture-Palooza-Blu-ray/dp/B00DEKKDPA/ref=sr_1_2_bnp_1_blu?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1406007165&sr=1-2&keywords=rapture-palooza




Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Hell Baby (2013)

A horror comedy written by, directed by, and starring Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, Hell Baby is a fairly amusing movie that could have been improved by two things. One, a better cast. Two, some sharper gags.

Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb are the couple who move into a home that has seen a lot of bad stuff, to put it mildly, within its walls. Bibb is quite heavily pregnant, and the parents-to-be hope to fill the place with good vibes and start making a rosy future. Keegan-Michael Key plays a man who keeps popping up to remind them of how unlikely that is, while two priests (Garant and Lennon) start down a trail that may well lead them to the very same house. Well, okay, it's obvious that it will. This isn't a mystery. It's obvious almost from the very beginning that the pregnancy is far from a normal one, which makes it just a matter of time until the priests get there and try to defeat any evil forces in the third act.

With a cast that also includes Riki Londhome and Michael Ian Black, this certainly has enough comic talent in front of the camera to help make the ridiculousness more palatable, but it's just a shame that there weren't a few more well-known names in the mix. The film doesn't actually have too many characters, which is a shame, because an extra cameo or two might have been enough to make this that bit more enjoyable. Bibb and Corddry are fun leads, Garant and Lennon work well together, and Key does well enough with a character that could have easily been far too grating.

But the biggest problem that the movie has is over-indulgence. I laughed quite a few times, but there were just as many occasions that started with me laughing and ended with me just wishing that everything had been wrapped up a bit quicker.

There are some easy jump "scares" here and some good gore, mixing with the easy laughs to result in something that defies the odds to become a surprisingly decent horror comedy at times. Unfortunately, it's all undone by a finale that ditches any semblance of intelligence for an overlong and unfunny riff on pass the parcel.

If you like the people involved then you'll like Hell Baby. It's fun. It's just a shame that Garant and Lennon didn't try a bit harder to tighten everything up and pack a bit more in to each act. And it's a great shame that they didn't seem to put any effort at all into thinking up a decent finale.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Baby-Blu-Ray-Leslie-Bibb/dp/B00EP2SN62/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390658933&sr=8-2&keywords=hell+baby



Sunday, 8 July 2012

Reno 911!: Miami (2007)

While I never watched the TV version of Reno 911! I was somehow always aware of it. It was a parody of the "COPS"-style TV shows that have become so popular over the last decade or so and featured some great comedy from two people I really enjoy seeing onscreen - Thomas Lennon and Wendi McLendon-Covey. Maybe if I'd seen some episodes I would have enjoyed it. Maybe not.

The plot sees our hapless police officers invited to a big event in Miami. It's not that they're special, or that anyone actually wanted them there, but the fact is that this time around everyone was invited. Things start off as you would expect - the group are mocked and their details can't be found on the system - but things swiftly turn around the next day when a terrorist attack leaves every other officer quarantined inside the main event building. Law and order must remain and it's up to the folks from Reno to uphold it. Uh oh.

Directed by Robert Ben Garant (who also co-wrote the thing with stars Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney - and, I'm sure, everyone who was able to improv some lines), this movie suffers due to the fact that every single character is just slightly too dumb to be amusing for an entire film. The cops are dumb, of course, but The Rock pops up just to be dumb too. Then we have a dumb, though still amusing, Scarface-inspired baddie played by Paul Rudd. Patton Oswalt, as Jeff Spoder, does reasonably well until the big finale, in which he also becomes pretty dumb. It's a symphony of stupidity and that's a tricky thing to get just right, which is why the movie falls down slightly.

There are many individual moments that cause laughs (the aforementioned appearance from The Rock is one while attempts to remove the body of a beached whale is another) but there are many other moments that pile on the crudity and nonsense without success. Lennon is consistently great, as are Wendi McLendon-Covey and Kerri Kenney, but the other main characters are either undeveloped or just plain unfunny.

With a cast that also features David Koechner and Nick Swardson, and even a small and amusing cameo for Danny DeVito, there's enough stupidity thrown around to make this a passable time-waster but it's not one that I'll choose to watch again.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reno-911-Miami-The-Movie/dp/B000RGUN2W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341255680&sr=8-1


Friday, 23 March 2012

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)

Time has rolled merrily along since the second Harold & Kumar movie and the two characters have gone their separate ways. Harold (John Cho) has a great job, a lovely wife (Paula Garces, reprising her role from the first two movies) and generally a life of comfort and security that always seemed to elude him while he spent his time getting high. Kumar (Kal Penn) hasn't really gone up in the world and is, funnily enough, still mostly interested in getting high. Fate brings the two together just in time to put Christmas in jeopardy and they spend the movie trying to put things right. If Harold doesn't manage to sort out a Christmas tree that will please his father-in-law then he will be in big trouble. Especially when that father-in-law is played by Danny Trejo.

With Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg back on the writing duties it's surprising to find that this Harold & Kumar movie feels the least like an actual Harold & Kumar movie. Perhaps that's due to the Christmassy nature of the whole thing or perhaps it's simply because our duo have, inevitably, grown up. Just a little bit.

Regardless of the reason, we get quite a slightly movie this time around. The one thing that stays constant throughout all three movies is just how much fun the supporting players are. Danny Trejo in a Christmas sweater, Patton Oswalt as a drug-dealing Santa, Neil Patrick Harris as "Neil Patrick Harris", Eddie Kaye Thomas and David Krumholtz as bickering friends, Thomas Lennon as the main scene-stealer this time around, Richard Riehle as another Santa Claus and Elias Koteas as a violent gangster - there's plenty to enjoy.

Director Todd Strauss-Schulson doesn't do too badly in his role, and the direction and script both make some of their best little gags out of the whole 3D razzle dazzle, but you can't help feeling that this should really be the last hurrah for Harold & Kumar. The quality and quantity of the comedy has dipped since that enjoyable first outing but they've managed to stay the course through a decent enough comic trilogy.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Two-Disc-Blu-ray-UltraViolet-Digital/dp/B006OFN0ES