Rank: 3/5
’Tis the season for traditions, and for many, that includes binge-watching classic holiday films.
Just like that mug of warm eggnog you’re craving, “The Night Before” spikes holiday cinema culture.
Movies of nostalgic familiarity, such as “Home Alone,” “The Polar Express,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” are spoofed by a cast that includes Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie.
Like any other Rogen movie, expletives and drug references are strung like Christmas lights throughout the raunchy script.
The aforementioned actors play three friends who are coming to terms with adulthood. For the sake of maturity, they abandon their past drunken holiday traditions. They spend their last annual bender on a journey for the ultimate underground rave, the Nutcracka Ball.
Following the paradigm of “Pineapple Express” and “Neighbors,” their adventure is filled with over-the-top psychedelic trips, penis jokes and other hilarity.
The film captured the essence of today’s pop culture. Songs by Kanye West, Run-D.M.C., Bassnectar, Britney Spears, Ice Cube and Miley Cyrus — as well as paradoxical holiday music — were staples of the film.
Social media was the punchline of many jokes. Mackie plays a professional athlete, who spends a lot of time shouting out products and promotions in public videos.
And the premise itself — that religious holiday traditions are the thesis of an R-rated comedy — is something that could only happen in 2015.
Despite the debauchery and sacrilegious antics — like when Rogen talks through his magic mushroom trip with a nativity scene and condemns a church — there are serious and sentimental moments vulnerably sprinkled throughout the plotline. “The Night Before” surprisingly promotes moral behavior.
The film taught lessons about honesty and maturity — despite an exaggerated lack of maturity in most of the jokes.
The plot highlighted the often unspoken issue of drunk driving accidents, which occur more frequently during the holidays.
Relationships are at the forefront of the moral story. Rogen plays a soon-to-be father, Gordon-Levitt’s character tries to heal his broken relationship and Mackie’s role becomes closer with his mother. Of course, the main characters’ grow their friendships too.
These noble principles are the only unexpected moments of “The Night Before.” Other than that, it’s the usual stoner-culture movie, just like “Knocked Up,” “Superbad” or “The Interview,” with a festively spirited twist.