The Rant: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

When Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle opened I was lucky enough to see it at an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema where they served imitation sliders as part of the theme. I loved the movie and knew immediately it would be a cult classic since this is the one film that could unite anyone who has made a late night slider run...I also knew it would be limited to cult classic since that particular audience wasn't the necessarily the type to plunk down 10 bucks to see a movie. So four years later, John Cho and Kal Penn get their sequel and I'm left to wonder if I can really enjoy this film without the Quixotic journey to White Castle lingering in the background. Who am I kidding? NPH is gonna be in this here movie, yo! I'm sold. Here's the Rant for Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, let me remind you that this is not a review and that there are SPOILERS galore. Cause (I need a new catchphrase since two years is a long time to roll, suggestions please) SUCKAS!


So the movie starts off where the last one left us. Harold and Kumar are on their way to Amsterdam to chase after Maria.

So, following the cosmic order of things, anytime you have characters who have just eaten 30 sliders and 4 orders of fries just hours before you have to address the White Castle shits. Like Harold in the movie I have experienced a roommate busting in the bathroom and taking a huge loppy WCS while I’ve been trying to shower. I still have Post sensatory traumatic syndrome from my Cincinnati experiences. It’s like the steam from the shower reactivates whatever undigested onions pass through and sit in the toilet. Just reminiscing over that oniony aroma mixed in with fast food poo makes me want to throw up…but it also leaves me craving White Castle. Seriously. Go figure.

As far as story structure goes this movie is almost identical to the original which isn’t a bad thing. It’s movie by numbers…instead of Freakshow, you get an inbred cyclops baby, instead of Maria you have Kumar’s former flame, you have the obligatory giant bag of weed fantasy scene. The villains have gone from Saltines to Ritz for the sequel. They’re a little richer, have a bit more flavor, but they’re still just crackers. NPH is back…but more on that later.

Cock-meat sandwich is probably the catch phrase most people are going to take from this move.

They also decided to bump up the blatant mocking of stereotypes a notch to really, most of which comes from the government figures in the movie. My favorite scenes were the interrogation techniques used on the black dude, the dumping of grape soda in order to coerce a statement and on Harold and Kumar’s Jewish pals, the dumping of approximately $7.00 worth of pennies.

The bottomless party…yeah it delivered, but it left me wondering if grooming trends for women are going back to “more hair down there”. Based on my experience it’s the opposite…and yes they’ve all been over 18! Jerks. Another thing that bothered me was a missed opportunity for a penis gag when H and K were forced to go bottomless. A Dirk Diggler prosthesis on Harold would have been comedy gold! In a movie that both wallows in the gutter (Kumar rubbed one out and spooged in his own face in the first two minutes) and likes to mock stereotypes they missed the obvious gag regarding Asian penis size.

Then there’s NPH. Neil Patrick Harris is back as Neil Patrick Harris. He loses impact with me since I’ve been a fan of “How I Met Your Mother”‘s Barney Stinson which is basically Harold and Kumar’s version of NPH without the drugs but with a suit. Still the idea of Doogie Howser plowing down the road chewing on shrooms is quite awesome.

I mean it SPOILER:

I guess the best way to put it is the way I described it on the phone last night. NPH gets blown away with a shotgun trying to escape a whorehouse where he had just branded his initials on a whore’s ass with an actual branding iron. Needless to say, Mother was disappointed when she heard this.

The romantic subplot was a waste of time and done terribly. Makers of Harold and Kumar, it’s 2008, you can have a realistic romantic plot filled with dick jokes aplenty and still make money at the box office. Signed, Judd Apatow.

There is a longer than I expected George Bush scene…I actually sympathized with the guy for a few minutes after I saw the movie. DAMN YOU HAROLD AND KUMAR!

So the ending has Harold and Kumar in Amsterdam with babes in tow and all of them are in love…with weed.

So…is it a well written story? No. Was the chased by the government theme a little gimmicky and charm tainting? Yes. Was it funny? Very. So it was mixed for me. I had a good time but wished for something better. Still early returns show that Harold and Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay’s opening weekend did 3 times what the original did so there’s still a chance to make up for it in a third.