Harold and Kumar: the sequel
Brian Stitt
Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Cadenza
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Rating: 3/5
Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry
Directed by: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg
There is a separation moment in "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," one that divides those who then and there buy into the movie's silliness from those who simply cannot do so. Anyone who has seen it remembers-it is the moment that the two upper-middle-class stoner heroes climb onto the back of a cheetah in an attempt to ride it to safety. At this point the audience (the ones who aren't high, at least) must decide whether they will accept the movie's ridiculous premise and embrace the simple pleasures found in a pot comedy with a brain and a heart.
But from someone who laughed himself to tears when Harold and Kumar's makeshift Battle Cat took off into the New Jersey foliage, I must say that the characters' unlikely second outing, "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," doesn't ever have that moment. But it manages quite a few chuckles and perhaps a belly laugh or two. I'm just not sure that I ever bought it.
"Guantanamo Bay" picks up right where "White Castle" left off. Roommates Harold and Kumar have bought two plane tickets to Amsterdam. They are on a mission to find Harold's new lady love Maria, and to spend a week in the weed capital of the world. At the airport, they run into Kumar's ex who is all set to marry a rich, Brooks Brothers-wearing, cushy-government-job-holding jerk. (How come all the coolest girls fall for these guys?) Kumar is visibly shaken, not only by the feelings he still has for this girl but by the realization that he has done nothing with his life in the time since they broke up.
He brushes off his sadness by reminding himself that he is on his way to a vacation visiting his green, memory-depleting lover. In fact, he's so impatient to get a taste of his favorite herbal remedy that he breaks out a high tech water pipe on the plane. Of course when a passenger sees a brown guy trying to light up a tubular device with flashing lights in the bathroom, his insistence that what he carries is only a bong falls on deaf ears.
Rating: 3/5
Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry
Directed by: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg
There is a separation moment in "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," one that divides those who then and there buy into the movie's silliness from those who simply cannot do so. Anyone who has seen it remembers-it is the moment that the two upper-middle-class stoner heroes climb onto the back of a cheetah in an attempt to ride it to safety. At this point the audience (the ones who aren't high, at least) must decide whether they will accept the movie's ridiculous premise and embrace the simple pleasures found in a pot comedy with a brain and a heart.
But from someone who laughed himself to tears when Harold and Kumar's makeshift Battle Cat took off into the New Jersey foliage, I must say that the characters' unlikely second outing, "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," doesn't ever have that moment. But it manages quite a few chuckles and perhaps a belly laugh or two. I'm just not sure that I ever bought it.
"Guantanamo Bay" picks up right where "White Castle" left off. Roommates Harold and Kumar have bought two plane tickets to Amsterdam. They are on a mission to find Harold's new lady love Maria, and to spend a week in the weed capital of the world. At the airport, they run into Kumar's ex who is all set to marry a rich, Brooks Brothers-wearing, cushy-government-job-holding jerk. (How come all the coolest girls fall for these guys?) Kumar is visibly shaken, not only by the feelings he still has for this girl but by the realization that he has done nothing with his life in the time since they broke up.
He brushes off his sadness by reminding himself that he is on his way to a vacation visiting his green, memory-depleting lover. In fact, he's so impatient to get a taste of his favorite herbal remedy that he breaks out a high tech water pipe on the plane. Of course when a passenger sees a brown guy trying to light up a tubular device with flashing lights in the bathroom, his insistence that what he carries is only a bong falls on deaf ears.
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