Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Still awesome

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source: Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Kal Penn has done it again. The premise was set perfectly and the movie took us through the different oddities about the paranoid and mad ways of American reactions to war against terror. These two gentlemen are put behind bars and sent of Guantanama Bay. The journey begins there and its a fun ride ahead. The movie apart from being rip roaring funny, also brings out lot of mistaken or rather true clichés of American society. Be it geographical ethnic or even racist. The sensitive subjects are treated pretty nicely. I should say hilariously too. The expression Kal Penn brings about for different situations are perfect and fits the scenes very well. Trust me he's got a funny looking face.

I would not say I was excited to see this movie, but I can say I did plan to watch it at some point. Luckily, I did not spend money on this movie and even contemplated walking out towards the end of the movie. The character of Ron Fox is perhaps one of the worst movie characters in recent memory. In no way was his character funny and he completely took away from the other characters that at least had some talent in the film. I am hoping that any of you that are on the fence whether to watch this film or not will think twice and save your time and money. The first of the series blows this atrocity out of the water and I don't know how anyone can say any different. Other than a few one-liners I sat in disbelief of how anyone could enjoy the film. This movie should have never been made and I hope they think long and hard before another of these films is released.

Movies like the Harold and Kumar sequel make me wish I had the old BOMB system again. The movie isn't just juvenile, uncreative, and pathetic; it's sort of a clinic on how to suck as a movie. It's extremely predictable, which would be fine if the jokes and raunch were any interesting. It's also viciously mean spirited - and not in the broad, over-the-top blunt (no pun intended) humor of the 2004 original, either. Back then, everything that the titular duo did was wrapped in a drug-induced haze, and that justified the lowbrow comedy. Hey, it's funny because they're stoned, man! Get it? But not so with this one. Sure, drug use figures prominently into the plot, but there aren't nearly enough drug scenes to save the movie. Harold and Kumar do things that can be obliquely traced to drug use, you see, but most of their problems come from their unimpaired decision making, and that makes for a dull, pointless film. Originally, this was titled "Harold and Kumar Go to Amsterdam," but eventually the filmmakers figured out that our buds (no pun intended, I swear) don't actually make it to Amsterdam. As the trailer showed, they're mistaken for terraists and are deposited in Guantanamo Bay. Well, the prison, not the actual bay. And then, as you might have been able to predict, they escape. Wild shenanigans follow, including a visit to a "bottomless" party (which was clever), a run in with nonstereotypical denizens in Alabama (not bad), an encounter with a stereotypical inbred hillbilly couple (including that "Hemi" guy from those old Dodge commercials), and a mixup with a Klan gathering. The latter was funny back when Chevy Chase did it in Fletch Lives, and no so much now. And of course there's the obligatory appearance by Neil Patrick Harris as himself. His was a huge boon to the original movie, and he's back, fortuitously showing up to save the lads from the Klansmen. And that's about the only time that the movie has any spark at all; Harris wolfs down mushrooms while driving to a whorehouse, and at one point he sees a unicorn. It's the exact kind of trippy awesomeness that helped make the original movie a cult hit, and there's so little of it here. Aside from that, the movie's pedestrian. Kumar wants to get to Texas and, in a staple of generic teen comedies, break up the wedding of his ex-girlfriend to the world's biggest douchebag - no offense to you other douchebags out there. Adding a complication we would NEVER have foreseen, he's also the One Guy who can get Harold and Kumar out of the mess they're in. And Harold wants to get to Amsterdam (eventually) to meet up with the girl he met at the end of the first movie (she's there on business; won't she be surprised? If so, it would be the only surprise in the movie.) At its heart, the movie's problem is that Kal Penn and John Cho don't have nearly the degree of on-screen chemistry that they had in the first movie, for whatever reason. The two kids from Superbad covered similar ground, and they were infinitely more believable and funnier. Harold and Kumar are bitter jerks to each other at various points in the story, and it's not the wild exaggerated-for-comic-effect kind of bitterness, either, which makes it a little uncomfortable to watch at times. Quite a disappointment. Constipating the humor even further was a howlingly awful performance by Rob Corddry as some deputy Homeland Security canker sore who's out to get Harold and Kumar. There's broad performance, and there's one-note. Corddry can be funny with a good script to follow, but if the writing's terrible, so is he. What should have been hyperbolically funny was instead discomfiting and annoying, huge debits for such a big role. I want my $10 back, to paraphrase the delivery boy in Better Off Dead. Harold and Kumar Escape from Gunatanamo Bay is a rip off, best enjoyed (if that) at home, ironically, with many friends who pay you to see it. Which would be illegal, I think, so don't do it.

Its kinda late for me to write the review as I saw this movie about 2 mnths ago in SF during the Asian American film festival. The movie is great and equally good as the white castle. Its definitely one of the best stoner comedies for sure. Kal Penn as usual has done a great job but also seen in a little emotional role with his gf. Haroldy has done a very good job as well. I don't know how the current version is going to be as they have been advertising sayiing 'modified for the uptight audiences' which kinda sucks. I hope they haven't gone too far with that If you liked the first one you'll simply love the 2nd one as well. It's definitely worth watching it and also worth owning a set of 2 DVDS (so far). I can't wait for another journey with H & K

American comedy is in dire straits, and has been for quite some time. This is even more troubling when it seems that most of the unfunny sludge being pumped out of Hollywood is targeting a demographic of which I'm a part (27-year old Caucasian male). Yet I fail to see any humor in the "Judd Apatow School" of so-called "comedy" (excepting "The 40-Year Old Virgin"), which seems to toss out pop-culture references and SHOW seemingly outrageous things without attaching any sense of style or panache to it–the joke is SUPPOSED to be the pop-culture reference or the outrageous image ITSELF (boy, I could laugh all day at guys who are obsessed with smoking pot!). Have our expectations as viewers of cinema become so low that this is the type of thing that now comprises "humor" and box-office success? If "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" is any indication, then the answer is a staggeringly depressing YES. But if the sparse first-weekend turnout in my theater is any indication, then this may be the death knell of the outrageous, pop-culture obsessed gross-out "comedy." Now before you point out my elitism and lack of humor, I will say that I watched "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" prior to this sequel, and enjoyed it quite a bit–the movie had a flawed yet endearing imbalance between sending up racial and cultural stereotypes, misogynist behavior, and stoner humor, all while leaving us enthralled by the quest of Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn), two wildly different roommates who embark on an often-hilarious misadventure to the titular location. Granted, some of the gags and characters existed solely to push the bounds of tastelessness, but the film overall was a solid little laugh-fest. Following the law of diminishing expectations (as well as the general rule that most sequels flat-out suck), "Guantanamo" is below-average to just plain awful in every respect. Taking its cues from the formulaic crudity of Apatow and the flatly patronizing outrageousness of "Borat" (another inexplicably popular "comedy" of few laughs), Harold and Kumar's second outing indulges racist and sexist stereotypes, broadly unfunny post-9/11 "humor," and increasingly tiresome marijuana gags. The audience for this seems not to be the people who appreciated the original, but those who blazed up in the parking lot before buying their tickets (and are thus prone to laughing at anything). That would go a long way in explaining why certain scenes (including a much-appreciated–but also much less funny–appearance by Neil Patrick Harris) are repeated almost verbatim from the original. "White Castle" had its share of incisive satire amid the vulgarity, using the quest for some munchies as a framing device, but "Guantanamo" feels aimless and meandering for most of its run time–the conflicts between our two main characters feel inauthentic, their encounters stale (including a run-in with the KKK and an inbred cyclops-child), and the sense of satire completely inept–nowhere is this more pronounced than in the character of Ron Fox (Rob Corddry), a Department of Homeland Security operative whose over-the-top character is one of the most vile, grotesque, and unfunny ever to appear in a motion picture; the writing and Corddry's own overblown performance is a blatant indicator of how off-the-mark John Hurwitz' and Hayden Schlossberg's direction really is. Based on "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," I doubt we'll be seeing a third installment in the series...but at least we'll always have "White Castle."

First, let me say I was a big fan of the first Harold and Kumar film. This sequel has none of the witty elements of the first film. The movie seemed like a weak student film with novice acting, poor direction, and no continuity (forget about how bad the writing was for this movie - here is a tip to the writers; that thing about smoking weed to get creativity, it is a myth so you might want to put the bong down next time). If this was the writer directors first film, it would surely be their last because it was so bad. Luckily, I didn't pay to see this junk and even so I feel like I should ask for money back! Don't say I didn't warn you......

In a world gone crazy where reality TV humiliates and tears every shred of decency from human beings both the people taking part and the mindless minions who watch countless hours of reality drivel (funny that these are the people who find films like Harold and Kumar rude, crude and offencive)and countless romantic comedies and boring Diaz and Sandler un-comedic vehicles comes the throwback that is Harold and Kumar well acted well written with every cliché and grossness you can think of and then some thrown in for good measure no group is spared the relentless assault made me smile from start to end, watching Neil Patrick Harris as a foul mouthed stoner and the constant stereotyping of everyone from rednecks to terrorists was priceless lets hope Harold and Kumar still have some more adventures to come, and by the way I'm in my 40's my girlfriends in her 20's and my mothers 64 and we all loved it.