The following morning after their life changing journey to get White Castle burgers, Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) prepare to leave for Amsterdam to go meet up with Harold's dream girl/possible girlfriend Maria (Paula Graces) and smoke all the legal weed they want. After the two are mistakenly identified as terrorists when Kumar brings a specialized bong on the plane, the two are detained by the U. S. government and on the order of the racist and stupid Deputy Director of Homeland Security Ron Fox (Rob Corddry) the two are sent to Guantanamo Bay detention facility. After terrorist prisoners cause a distraction with their escape attempt, Harold and Kumar stow back to the United States with Cuban refugees and try to make their way to Texas to meet up with Harold's college friend Colton Graham (Eric Winter) who has government connections that can clear the two of them, but is also marrying Kumar's ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Danneel Harris) whom Kumar still has feelings for.
While Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was a critical hit upon release and quickly developed a cult following, the duo's popularity exploded once the film was released to home video. Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg returned to write the sequel and also took on directing duties making the film the duo's directorial debut. While initially planned as a direct-to-video release, Warner Bros. Made the decision to screen the film theatrically. Made on a budget of about $12 million, the film grossed about $43 million or roughly double what the first film brought in at the box office. Critical reception was more mixed with some feeling the film lacked the freshness of its predecessor, some critics as well as audiences responded positively to the film. While Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay would inevitably face an uphill battle given how comedy sequels have historically turned out, for the most part I feel like this sophomore installment bucks that trend and is one of the better sequels to a comedy I've seen.
Much like the first film, it's the chemistry and timing in the exchanges between John Cho and Kal Penn that really make Harold and Kumar such fun and endearing characters. Taking place mere moments after the ending of the first one, the film doesn't skip a beat in terms of feeling like continuation of the story and if one were inclined to do so you could probably edit the first Harold & Kumar film into this one to make a three hour film and it would feel (mostly) cohesive. Admittedly the movie does have to retcon some of Kumar's character development from the last movie to make its premise work, but it isn't a massive divergence from how Kumar was established so it gets more leeway than when other comedy sequels do this especially since it's only the next morning after the previous film. Much like the previous film, the movie is a series of episodes Harold and Kumar encounter in trying to reach their destination with the episodes being mostly humorous with encounters with Klansman, hillbillies, bordellos and more making for memorable comedic setpieces that Harold and Kumar bounce off nicely against. Sometimes there is a bit of a feeling of retreading as the hillbilly segment is somewhat similar to the Freakshow encounter from the first movie, and Neil Patrick Harris reprises his role as the drug addled sex crazed version of himself, but the jokes are given enough of a twist that the gags never feel labored. The one part that I don't think works all that well is Rob Corddry's role as antagonist Ron Fox and I don't think it's Corddry's fault as there are moments where he gets a laugh, but Fox is just such a lunkheaded two dimensional racist that his schtick of interrogating black witnesses by dumping out grape soda or dumping loose change on the table while interrogating David Krumholtz' Goldestein and Eddie Kaye Thomas' Rosenberg just feel like variations on the same joke with diminishing returns.
While Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay does encounter some of the pitfalls that you expect when making a comedy sequel, I personally feel the movie does enough to sidestep most (if not all) of them and delivers on what made the first film so entertaining. Granted some segments do flounder and there are some characters who aren't as good as they could've been but if you enjoyed the first Harold and Kumar film you'll find plenty to warrant a viewing.
