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Our favorite modern cinema stoners get a dank high-def box set of their very own....
Warner / 291 Minutes / 2004-2011 / Unrated / Street Date: November 13, 2012
One of the first things you must realize when you make a stoner movie is that things simply shouldn't get too complicated. Look at the original Harold and Kumar flick: the dudes want to go to White Castle and have a bitch of a time getting there. That's it. There are labyrinths of hijinks between its opening scene and their eventual arrival at the damned place, but the overall aim of the picture is direct, unambiguous, and crystal clear.
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, its bloated sequel, abandoned this straight-and-narrow formula, with a massively convoluted structure that took our boys from America's most notorious prison to smoking weed with Dubya. There were laughs aplenty, I guess, but it gave the impression of beating a dead horse - it was simply too all-over-the-place for its own good. And if the first two installments were yin and yang in terms of quality, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas falls smack-dab between them - it's a sometimes-funny franchise comedy that is neither a waste of time nor nearly as thoroughly enjoyable as it should be.
The question in terms of this Ultimate Collector's Edition set, though, is whether fans of the series will find significant value in double-dipping. First of all, realize that Christmas' is not available in its original 3D, and secondly, these are simple repackagings of already-available H&K flicks. This is a box set for those who never jumped into Harold and Kumar in high-def - if you already have the movies on your shelf, it's a better idea to simply rewatch them than to invest the coin in a collection like this one.