READ MORE: Harold and Kumar at Comic Con

PREMIERE'S REVIEW (posted 4/24/08)

The box office returns for Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle were a buzzkill, but the movie has found a huge fan base once on DVD. (Probably because getting to the theaters is so much more of a hassle than renting a DVD and ordering in.) It also helped revive Neil Patrick Harris's career, or at least got him a sitcom gig that has a cult following (and occasional Britney cameos). The former Doogie Howser cussed and screwed and snorted coke off strippers' posteriors, only to come from behind (ha!) to save the day for H&K and their beloved burgers. Naturally he came back for a second round to be the knight on a shining unicorn as our doofy duo run from the law.

The sequel picks up just hours after the last movie ended, right before they embark on a trip to Amsterdam to hook up with their sexy neighbor, Harold's longtime crush. The first scene starts out all romantic and stuff, with Harold in a gleaming white bathroom, daydreaming in the shower — only to be interrupted by Kumar taking a giant, White Castle-sized dump loudly in the adjacent toilet. But whatever, if you didn't know H&K2 would be full of jizz, poop, marijuana and vagina jokes, you get what you deserve.

It's a short trip from the potty to Gitmo, our heroes find, as Kumar's stupendously bad judgment and impressive determination to be high at all times results in a scene reminiscent of United 93. This is where Ron Fox (Rob Corddry), Deputy Chief of Homeland Security, comes in all wild-eyed and determined to bust this terrorist case ("North Korea and Al Qaeda, working together!") while his boss is on an ice-fishing trip. His racism is almost magnificent in its stupidity, and resourceful to boot — he tries to force the "truth" out of an African-American witness by pouring out a can of grape soda, and his attempt at torturing Harold and Kumar's Jewish buddies involves pennies.

The plot's thinner than a White Castle patty: escape Guantanamo, which happens almost immediately, and find their way to Texas so a politically connected friend of Harold's (and an enemy of Kumar's — he's marrying Kumar's hot ex) can help get them cleared. As per their trip to White Castle, it is never that simple — and as always it includes racists, boobs, inbred freaks and Neil Patrick Harris doing drugs. This cipher also includes a whorehouse run by Beverly D'Angelo, a hooker named Tits Hemingway, and smoking coke-laced doobies with Dubya (naturally!).

It's true that H&K2 tries a little too hard; it's a little too unsubtle in its fervent attempt to both humanize the protagonists and show them, like, growing emotionally and shit, man! That said, the scenes from their college days are a-ma-zing, and I can't help but cheer when love interests hook up. And the Guantanamo Bay aspect &3151; well, what made the original Harold & Kumar so interesting was that their ethnicities were beside the point, they weren't a plot point in themselves.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, every semi-serious sentence is outweighed by Christopher Meloni playing a lazy-eyed Grand Wizard (under the name of Reverend Clyde Stanky), Neil Patrick Harris hallucinating unicorns while at a security roadblock and later branding his initials in the butt cheek of a woman with the hugest breasts I've ever seen in my life, and the excellent timing of the soundtrack (Mickey Avalon's "My Dick" makes a welcome appearance, as does Boyz II Men).

At the screening I attended, someone walked in wearing a shirt that read "I HEART BONGS," so that gives you a pretty good idea of the target audience. Maybe this time they will rouse themselves from the couch and make it possible for us to follow Harold and Kumar through more adventures. The writers/directors have made it clear they're ready to write them.

— Jenni Miller