Two Knuckleheads Are Better Than One

In the tradition of knuckleheaded pairs such as Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello comes Harold and Kumar. Unlike the aforementioned cerebrally challenged cohorts, these two are even more dangerous because of their penchant for smoking pot. Just imagine being an idiot in the first place and then having whatever is left in between your ears get destroyed by continuous substance abuse. Is there such thing as a negative IQ? I don't believe so but Harold and Kumar's intelligence must be somewhere in the teens only.

The film is the sequel to Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. This time their quest is to go to Amsterdam. Why you may ask? Is it because of its historical value, Van Gogh paintings or its housing the headquarters of the biggest companies in the world? No it is not. They went there because it is the "weed capital of the world." Not only that but Harold want to follow Maria and win her over.

While on board to Amsterdam, Kumar shows of his new invention, the smokeless bong. This catches the attention of an old lady and she suspects Kumar to be a terrorist. The air marshals pounce on the duo and after being interrogated by Ron Fox, a Homeland Security bureaucrat. He suspects Harold of being an operative of North Korea and Kumar of working for Al-Qaeda. They end up in the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.

In Guantanamo Bay detention facility they are exposed to the real life hostilities of the place such as racial discrimination and sexual humiliation. These atrocities are real by the way and not just made for the movie. They are then forced to perform oral sex on the military personnel guarding the place. It is just fortunate that the two suspected terrorists found a way to escape and Harold and Kumar were beneficiaries of that and it allowed them to escape as well.

From there they are off to several adventures such as a brush with the Klu Klux Klan, a pot session with George W. Bush, Kumar fantasizing about making out with a bag of weed, Harold and Kumar going to a friends place to enjoy a "bottomless" party, Harold and Kumar meeting Neil Patrick Harris who played Doogie Howser MD and the three of them going to a hooker joint and Neil Patrick Harris constantly seeing himself mounting unicorns.

I wanted to include more but that would give away too much away. Will this story have a happy ending? Will Harold get Maria and will Kumar get Vanessa? Or will the story end tragically and Vanessa gets married to the more successful Colton?

Video

1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. The film makes a nice translation from big screen to small screen. For some reason though the picture is slightly grainy.

Audio

Dolby Digital EX 5.1 Surround Sound mix. The sound is quite clear especially in the scenes where there is heavy dialogue.

Extras

Disc One

-Commentary by Co-Writers and Co-Directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg and main stars John Cho and Kal Penn.

- Commentary by Co-Writers and Co-Directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg and James Adomian.

-A "Dude, Change The Movie" section which plays like an interactive game. This allows you to make choices for our duo and the movie changes depending on your decisions.

-Trailers for Run, Fat Boy, Run, Lost Boys: The Tribe, and Semi-Pro.

Disc Two

-"Inside the World of Harold and Kumar" features some clips from the movie, some behind the scenes footage and interviews with the cast and crew.

-Eighteen deleted scenes.

-Extended bits from the scenes

-A fake public service announcement from the fake George W. Bush. How fake can you get?

The Verdict

The movie is very similar to the first movie and there is nothing much new on the film in terms of concept and creativity. The movie still revolves around Harold and Kumar getting involved in adventures relating to sex, drugs and racism. It is the same old formula rehashed. It is like the original series of Megaman in which all titles are the same game with just different robot masters.

While the movie tries to be funny and going to extremes to do it, some points are a bit too crude and offensive. Ron Fox wiping his posterior with the United States Constitution simply crosses the line. This is as heinous an act as burning someone's national flag or vandalizing a portrait of a country's head of state. It is simply tasteless humour.

Some points of the movie however were also insensitive such as the scene where they parodied the inhuman conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detainment facility itself. There have been so many reports and investigations about human rights violations there. There have been violations against race, religion and gender over there. That is not funny at all. I am glad President Barrack Obama is planning to shut it down.

There are however some amusing moments such as Kumar reciting his mathematically laced poem, Harold and Kumar having a pot session with George W. Bush and Neil Patrick Harris mounting unicorns. The last one was particularly amusing and reminded me of the hippies back in the 1970's.

As a kid who grew up watching Doogie Howser MD and admiring Neil Patrick Harris' character there as a young and idealistic genius, I marked out and actually paid more attention to Neil Patrick Harris than the disastrous duo. This is was similar to what happened to the Green Hornet television show. Instead of the attention going to Van Williams as the Green Hornet, the attention went to the manservant Kato and to Bruce Lee. To me Neil Patrick Harris simply steals the spotlight and the show.

It is quite funny to think that here he plays the anti-Howser. He is no longer the idealistic young lad but rather a beer drinking, mushroom chomping, whore patronizing, profane language speaking son of a gun. Whooooo! He also portrays his real life opposite as Neil Patrick Harris is a self-confessed gay man.

The movie as funny as it may intend to be it centers too much on things that make this world a worse place to be in such as racism, religious differences, drugs and sexual disrespect to women. It focuses too much on why we see is each other as different. As a friend of mine tells me "Each person thinks the other person is weird." We are all human beings after all. I do not care if you are white, black, brown, red or yellow. I do not care if you are a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim or an atheist. I also do not care if you are straight or gay. We are all human beings and we should respect each other's beliefs and differences.

I once watched an episode of the Twilight Zone and it made a scenario where every human was born with different looks but there was a process that could transform them into people who looked exactly alike. There were templates for both male and female. Imagine that we all look the same. Your sense of you being gone! You would be exactly like everybody else. What kind of world would that be?

John Cho and Kal Penn are a good pair but nowhere near the caliber of Rush Hour duo Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. Also, the Rush Hour series was done in good taste and shows how two people from relatively different cultural backgrounds could work together to meet a common goal. This is unlike Harold and Kumar who go as far as insulting other races as well.

While I had some fun watching the movie, I would recommend renting this first or buying this second hand because it simply was not as funny as the first. This is usually the problem with sequels because the prequel sets the bar too high at times. In terms of story though and moral lessons there is not much to speak of though.

© TheChosen1. Review is published in other sites under the same name

-Previously Published in Ciao and Dooyoo