Harold & Kumar are mistaken for terrorists after sneaking a bomb on board their flight to Amsterdam . They are detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba until they escape and try to clear their names… And Neil Patrick Harris rides a unicorn.
I don't recall ever being as pleasantly surprised by a film as I was by the original Harold & Kumar. I recall seeing the trailers depicting two stoners riding a cheetah… What else could I expect? I was thoroughly impressed, however, and subsequently saw it three times during its theatrical release. The film exceeded my expectations so greatly, that I couldn't help but look forward to the sequel.
Escape from Guantanamo Bay, while falling short of the comedic standards set by the first film, contains enough of the same surreal humor to appease fans of the original. It aims to surpass the film in every way possible – It is far more crude, the situations are more outrageous, characters are killed, and there's more bottomless female nudity than in any film I can remember outside of the Debbie Does… series of films. While this creates for some interesting and amusing sequences, the film is a significant step backward from its predecessor.
If sequels were constructed only if the original film required it, or if the filmmaker's original vision was two segments long, sequels would be far more effective (i.e. The original Star Wars trilogy). However as 99% of sequels are pure money grabs, quality takes a back seat to one-upping the original film. The result is often an unmemorable, or even bad, film. Harold and Kumar isn't bad, but it's hardly memorable.
The movie takes place immediately after the first ended, and all the primary characters from the first film make cameos at the very least. As nearly every character is a minority of some sort, they are all made equal fun of, usually at the hands of Rob Corddry, as an official from Homeland Security investigating the two ‘terrorists'. The script has Corddry throw out every racial stereotype you could probably imagine, even going so far as to have Harold's parents' perfect English translated for him. The first film had fun with stereotypes, yet never went so far as to be tasteless or offensive. …Guantanamo Bay attempts to be humorous through all these stereotypical situations, yet misses the mark as often as it hits, resulting in a slightly more ‘mean-spirited' (for lack of a better term) film, if only because these minority shots are more blatant and lack their humorous disguise.
It also seems at times, that writer/director(s) Jon Hurwitz and Hay Schlossberg take the audience a little for granted. I.e. there's a joke halfway through the film, in which Kumar asks Harold for a Baby Ruth. Now we all know this is a reference to The Goonies, yet the script has Kumar explain this very joke to Harold, when he doesn't get it. We get it… and if we don't, it's probably because we haven't seen The Goonies and the joke is lost on us anyway. It seems like an unnecessary over-explanation of a joke that needs no explanation.
At the end of its 102 minute running time, you won't feel like you wasted your time with Harold and Kumar, but you may not feel completely satisfied. It should appeal to any fan of the original, but I doubt it'll gain the series any new fans. It is however worth seeing, simply for another hilarious performance by NPH.
