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Trust Weighted
Very Good
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21Trust Points
tomelce's Review
Summary - OK 2.5
“Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” basically follows the same plot trajectory as 2004’s “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.” Title characters Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) head off towards Amsterdam this time around, but a misunderstanding involving an enhanced bong sees the pair mislabeled terrorists by passengers and shipped out to Guantanamo Bay by the United States government. By unlikely circumstances (read: cock-meat sandwich aversion), they escape and go on the run, headed towards Texas, where Kumar’s ex’s fiancee might be able to help them out. On their trail is Gov. Agent Ron Fox (Rob Corddry), a bigot who judges every minority group by racial stereotypes.
Along their way, Harold and Kumar go through a similar all-over-the-place freaky wringer to their first cinematic outing. Jokes are predominately focused on one of two things: race or sex. Unlike with its predecessor, “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” gets an even distribution of laughs through each topic (before, the race jokes were about the only funny ones). The encounters Ron Fox has with various minorities in pursuit of the escaped Harold and Kumar equate a mixed bag, but a sequence involving him, a black man and some grape soda is devilishly funny — and aided by the background comments of pedestrians nearby. The funniest gag in this film that also features a nifty sequence involving a brutally deformed inbred child is the film’s most overtly sexual. Kumar fantasizes about sex with former flame Vanessa (Daneel Harris) and a human-sized back of marijuana.
Superior to its immediate predecessor, “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” nonetheless fails to rise to the levels of the oddly charming likes of other stoner comedies like “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and “Smiley Face.”