If you ask me, the latest installment of John Cho and Kal Penn’s lascivious exercise in bong-fueled foolery should’ve been titled “Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (in under ten minutes),” because that’s really all it takes. From the moment they’re taken into custody, we never really get the notion of any real danger due to their knack for weaseling out of the most precarious situations. Whether it’s the Department of Homeland Security or the Ku Klux Klan, no one seems formidable enough to contain the dynamic duo on their quest for unadulterated hedonism, so I’m surprised to say that I actually enjoyed much of what they brought to the table.
Together, Cho and Penn are almost like a modern-day Cheech and Chong who certainly enjoy their share of marijuana, but also have some sporadically humorous observations regarding race and how the Bush Administration has approached the war on terror.
For instance, the scene in which the president invites them into his secret lair to get away from Dick Cheney works well, because writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are able to shrewdly skewer Bush without coming across as too pretentious or heavy-handed. They feed directly off his country boy persona and frequent annihilation of the English language, which is really no worse than anything a comedian or late-night pundit has already done.
As for the rest of the plot, much of it feels recycled from “White Castle” and probably won’t be universally remembered when bigger and better movies come around. Sure, SVU’s Christopher Meloni was highly amusing as the KKK’s Grand Wizard and Neil Patrick Harris is back to his old disorderly self, but most of it felt like different incarnations of the same joke. The exuberance level may not be what it was four years ago, but the fun-spirited exploits are still very much in play. So while I don’t think a third is really necessary, it wouldn’t exactly be the worst thing.
- ** ½ out of 4
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