Sooo...this was a bit of a let down. Definitely not "This is the End." It had it's funny moments and some great pop culture references for the 80's babies and kids, but most of it seemed forced and too over the top. It was also pretty predictable. Now all of this would be fine in a Seth Rogen movie, IF the entire movie was hilarious. But...that it was not.
It opens with Tracy Morgan narrating a rhyming Christmas story about the three friends, Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Isaac (Seth Rogen), and Chris (Anthony Mackie). Think a corny attempt at doing a funny, bromance version of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." Christmas Eve of 2001 Ethan's laying his parents to rest after they are killed by a drunk driver. Not wanting their friend to be alone on Christmas, Isaac and Chris end up taking him out on Christmas Eve, and the trio begin a 14 year tradition of going to see the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, recreating the piano playing scene from the movie "Big" (but to Kanye's "Runaway" with Chris rapping the song), eating Chinese food, and doing karaoke (Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis"). One year, they hear about a party called the Nutcracker Ball, and they spend the next few years trying to find it each Christmas Eve, but to no avail. That is until this year, the final year of the tradition.
It's 2015. Isaac is a married attorney with a baby on the way, Chris has been playing football for 6 years and is now finally famous thanks to steroids, and Ethan's musical aspirations have gone to the wayside along with the love of his life. Ethan finds himself at 33 working an event as an elf. When he's moved to coat check duty and drops a coat, he finds and steals three passes to the Nutcracker Ball.
The trio meets at Isaac's home before heading out, and Isaac's wife gives him an early present for his night out, a box of drugs she purchased from craigslist. So yes, Isaac gets into all types of mishap high on shrooms and cocaine. He records a video of himself threatening to throw his baby away, accidentally switches phones with his wife's co-worker, Sarah (played by Mindy Kaling), after freaking her out by having her drink a cocktail he accidentally had a nosebleed in, ends up considering hooking up with another man who his sexting Sarah's phone, spends a few minutes hallucinating and having a conversation with the nativity scene in front of the church his wife and her family are attending midnight mass at, fails to leave when his wife tries to get him to leave the church before her family comes up to the church, goes into midnight mass with them and totally freaks out (including throwing up and yelling that they, he's Jewish, didn't murder Jesus among other less than wholesome things). At the Nutcracker ball we learn the sexting was with James Franco who played up his "is he gay or isn't he gay" thing, and they lightweight rekindled their "Bound 2" parody by dancing together with Sarah trying to get James' attention. He also assaults Chris' pro ball playing friends.
Chris is in the NFL, but he's just now finding some stardom towards the end of his career thanks to steroids. He's big at social media, growing his fan base and endorsement deals. And other star pro ball players finally know who he is. He calls the star of the team, Tommy Owens (aka Messiah, who Isaac kind of crucifies at the Nutcracker ball, played by Aaron Hill) to tell him he will be attending the Nutcracker Ball like Tommy and some other pro players (including Baron Davis). The players ask him to bring weed. So Ethan hit's up Mr. Green (Michael Shannon), their weed dealer from high school. More on him in a bit. While in the middle of a snapchat, Chris meets Rebecca Grinch (Ilana Glazer) who claims to be a huge fan. They hook up and later he realizes she stole his weed. So they have to meet up with Mr. Green again, this time at Chris' mother's house (because Mr. Green will only meet them at a place they've met at before when they were in high school...the first time they met that evening it was at the high school). They go in and play N64 while they wait. Isaac's phone ends up waking up Chris' mother ( Lorraine Toussaint) who didn't know they were there, and she fixes them a meal. Later, they run into Rebecca Grinch again, and she's stealing from a Salvation Army collection plate and ends up stealing Chris' weed again. Chris then spends part of the movie chasing her down, while Isaac is tripping on drugs and trying to find Sarah to get his phone back before she sees the video he made about his baby, leaving Ethan alone on their final year of their Christmas Eve traditions.
Ethan ends up getting in a fight with two men in Santa costumes, and then the trio happen to end up at the same subway station. They get on the subway and head to the Nutcracker Ball. Ethan blames his fight and the bad turn of events on Chris and Isaac. And when Chris calls him out on it, Ethan calls Chris out on using steroids. And the trio ends up heading to the Nutcracker Ball on less than good terms. When they arrive to the secret location of the Nutcracker Ball, they split up. Chris goes to find his pro ball friends, Isaac goes to get his phone from Sarah, and Nathan goes looking for the love of his life, Diana (Lizzy Caplan) who is attending the Nutcracker Ball with Sarah as they are co-workers (yes she works with Isaac's wife too). Instead of finding Diana, Ethan runs into Miley Cyrus, who is Diana's favorite singer. Keeping in mind Chris' mother's advice that magic happens on Christmas and he should go get Diana back, Ethan seeks Miley's help to get Diana back. Miley tells him he has to go big, because it's Christmas, and propose to Diana! Umm...so while performing "Wrecking Ball" she calls Nathan on stage and he proposes to Diana. Here's the problem, they aren't even dating, because he refused to meet her parents and get serious. She reluctantly says yes in the crowd, but afterwards tells him she only said yes to keep Miley from thinking she hates love and that she isn't going to marry him. But in a later scene, Ethan goes to Diana's parents' home where she always spends Christmas, and they work it out after he tells her how much she means to him and that he wants to meet her family. She confesses that when they ran into each other earlier in the movie at the karaoke bar, she purposefully planned on meeting him there. But did she purposefully let it slip that she had tickets to the Nutcracker Ball (I suppose thanks to Sarah who probably got them from James Franco) knowing he and his friends always wanted to go, prior to learning he too had tickets? I don't know...
As for Mr. Green, he was...well I suppose a hodgepodge of Jay Gatsby, ghosts of Christmas, the angel from "The Preacher's Wife" (Denzel's character), and Santa's son?! It turns out Mr. Green started the Nutcracker Ball after being intrigued by Leo Dicaprio's Jay Gatsby in "The Great Gatsby." Towards the end of the film, he gets wings after helping the trio throughout the night and flies up into the sky, similar to Denzel in "The Preacher's Wife." At the end he's at the North Pole where Santa (Tracy Morgan) is finishing up the story, and says something about finally making Santa proud in a way that suggested he was Santa's son. But throughout the film he's the ghosts of Christmas from "A Christmas Carol." He sells weed to Chris, and when he has Chris test it, he says it's weed of the present. And nothing happens, because well it's weed of the present and they're already in the present. When they hit him up for more weed at Chris' mom's house, Isaac agrees to go down and get the weed. This time, Mr. Green gives Isaac weed of the future to test, and he and Isaac travel to the future to a strip club where Isaac's wife, Betsy (Jillian Bell) is encouraging their now grown daughter who is a stripper. And at the Nutcracker Ball, he has Ethan smoke the weed of the past, where he goes back in time and relives the night Isaac and Chris came to cheer him up after the passing of his parents...the night the tradition started.
Kind of confusing? Kind of all over the place? Kind of see a general plot? Yea, that's pretty much it. They crammed a bunch of pop culture references and parodies in. Threw in some surprise guests. And occasionally threw in some funny moments. But overall, there was more cringing and rolling of my eyes at what seemed to be a film trying too hard.