Harold and Kumar Escape from Guanatanamo Bay review

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Starring: Jon Cho, Kal Penn, Niel Patrick Harris, and Rob Corddry
Directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
Rated R (contains strong crude and sexual humor, copious nudity, pervasive language, obviously a lot of drug and alcohol use, and one shockingly violent scene)
Score: ****

So, we have our first big movie of the summer (unoficially). It's a sequel (of course). It's a sequel to a good movie (shockingly).

This movie, beleive it or not, is also quite good.

Harold and Kumar, as many of you probably remember, are potheads who ramble aimlessly while trying to accomplish some outlandish task. In the first film ,it was getting to White Castle to eat 30 burgers and four large orders of fries each. In this movie, the two lovable losers try to travle to Amsterdam, but are mustaken for terrorists. They end up in Gitmo.

Thus is the hilarious premise the movie sets up so well. These characters make the movie what it is. They drive the story, their reactions make us laigh, and their dialogue actually gives us insight into who they are. This is the key to the success of this movie.

The jokes are mostly right on the money. They focus on outlandish situations and politically incorrect idealogies. The movie takes stabs and jokes that many other movies would be afraid to, outside of say, Team America or South park.

The film's only one and obvious problem is that many of the jokes are retreads from the original film, which was a refreshingly original movie. I was hoping for the same here, and I did get some hilarious and oddly erotic sequences, but it seemed too focused on connecting everything back to the first film. On at least one occasion, it worked perfectly. On others, it just interrupts the flow of the film.

Of course, I have to say something about Neil Patrick Harris. He does such a fantastic job of parodying himself. if this movie was lacking NPH, I would have hated it. Well, not really, but he moves the film up a notch.

Overall, a worthy entry into a growing franchise. I hope to see more of Roldy and Kumar soon.