"Hasn't the whole 3D thing jumped the shark by now?"

Uh, no, Harold. Not quite yet.

Exhibit A for the defense: "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas."

Rude things — bodily fluids, body parts — along with glass shards and smoke rings (of a particularly potent sort of smoke) fly from the screen in such profusion that you may want to carry an umbrella into the theater with you to deflect them all.

The makers of the comedy fully understand that 3D is a gimmick much overused these days. And understanding that, they overuse it themselves in such a way as to cannily comment on the clichéd nature of the gimmick while expertly exploiting it to hilarious effect.

Some of the humor is actually subtle, like an in-jokey allusion to actor Kal Penn's off-screen stint as a staffer in the Obama White House. But most of it is broad and bawdy. Fans of the stoner duo wouldn't have it any other way.

The good news is that after the disappointingly strident and not-very-funny second movie in the series, 2008's "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay" (an extended rant against racial profiling in the age of the war on terror), this latest picture rediscovers the no-holds-barred yet oddly sweet-natured spirit of the original, 2004's "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." In fact, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Penn) briefly stop in at a White Castle burger joint, an in-joke nod to the movie that put them on the pop- cultural map.

They've grown apart in the years since taking their brain-fried 2004 odyssey. Harold has married and become a big-deal Wall Street guy while Kumar has been dumped by his girlfriend and lives in a dump where he spend his days getting high. The picture gets them back together on Christmas Eve and sends them into Manhattan on an all-night search for a 12-foot Christmas tree. They're chased by bloodthirsty Ukrainian gangsters, menaced by a homicidal clay-animated snowman and reunited with series regular Neil Patrick Harris, who steals the movie as usual, this time with a deliriously campy Christmas song-and-dance extravaganza and raunchy aftermath.

Above all, they get baked on locoweed. They bond. They shoot Santa Claus. Things certainly get wild for our heroes this time around.

Soren Andersen: asoren7575@yahoo.com