The scary thing about sequels is that, no matter the genre, they are all in jeopardy of falling into the same trap. When the first movie is a success, the desire to please is overwhelming, so the writers try to concoct ideas they feel will be even bigger and more bombastic than they were before. It's a hard thing to pull off, since audience members are so eager to be impressed in ways they weren't the first time out. To not deliver what you promise is a good way, in some respects, to discredit the original product. Depending on how bad the sequel is, its predecessor can look like a stroke of luck. Sure, lots of great movies have worthy and sometimes even better sequels, but for comedy, it seems to be the rarest or rarities. It is the hardest genre to pull off well, after all, due to the fact that trying to determine what will make people laugh is a genuine risk. If it hits, more power to you but if it doesn't, start searching for a new job. Sadly though, the standards for what's funny have sank to an incredible low. Real comedy, based on situations and characters, has been replaced by people smoking weed and performing stupid tricks. I'm not saying I have an issue with this; I'm just saying that it gets old when the characters are the same from one movie to the next. It's the lack of variety that makes these "stoner comedies" feel so desperate to me.
I had a lot of anxiety when I went to see Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. First off, it's a stoner comedy and secondly, it stars two guys who, up until then, had been reduced to cheap sketch roles. Color me amazed that not only were they both very appealing, the movie didn't reduce them to the level of brain dead idiocy. Even more so, they're both quite intelligent and you can tell they think before they speak. In addition to being likable, Harold & Kumar (gasp!) has something to say, and it doesn't shove it down our collective throats. The movie is a very sharp (almost deceptively so) critique on racial hypocrisy; it's the struggles of two guys, one Indian and the other Asian, who are forced to deal with blind ignorance.
The movie was vulgar too, but it knew there was a line. Most of the tasteless stuff was spoken, not seen. Pity that so many filmmakers have forgotten that often, the idea of something is funnier than having it displaying right before your eyes. So, I was thrilled with the movie, bummed out when it tanked, and then thrilled again when home video rescued it and a sequel was announced. Both stars had signed to come back, a positive sign, plus the original writers were also returning, yet another and equally as crucial positive sign. I, for one, could not wait to see what would happen to Harold and Kumar next.
Movie two is called Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, and it picks up right where the first one ended. Harold (John Cho) is the brainiac with a respectable finance job, and Kumar (Kal Penn) is a child prodigy destined for a great medical career. Despite Harold's high aspirations, Kumar would rather smoke dope than go to his med school interviews, which always lands them in a situation they would rather not be in. In other words, their planned trip to Amsterdam gets canceled on the plane thanks to Kumar, and what follows is a series of misadventures similar to the ones experienced in the first movie. Only dirtier.
Those last words are one of the biggest problems with Harold & Kumar 2. Writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (making their directorial debut) have ditched the sly smarts of their first project and replaced it with a lot of visually gross humor, ranging from flying cum to heavily bearded genitals. About ten minutes in, I was stunned and a little sad that the one element the first movie left out was now being embraced as if it had always been there. Aside from that, the reason for the journey this time doesn't have the same ring to it. The last outing was for those tasty little burgers. Picture two is all about impressing a woman. Where's the originality in that?
The movie tries to recapture the main theme again, which is the fact that the average white American is ignorant to anyone who doesn't share their skin color. That would be all well and dandy if the filmmakers actually had something new or funny to say but instead, they beat a dead horse. It's the equivalent of satire trying to bite without teeth, most of the time meaning the attempts at humor are embarrassing. The largest example of this comes in the form of Ron Fox (Rob Corddry), a government agent convinced that Harold and Kumar are terrorists (South Korea and Al Qaeda working together) and won't listen to anyone's reasoning as to why they're not. The character is not funny because he's painfully aggressive, making the execution more offensive than anything else. Examine the scene where he taunts a black Orthodontist to best understand what I mean.
The situations Harold and Kumar stumble into on this journey, which I will not reveal here, lack the bizarre and nightmarish quality they had the first time (Okay, I'll spoil one. Do we really need another scene involving a minority and a KKK rally?). Each disaster is obvious and feels like it could have come from any stoner comedy; I guess I just expect more from a Harold & Kumar movie than say, Half Baked. Their quest for the American Dream has gone from something worth rooting for to a pale imitation of the wackiness found in a Cheech and Chong movie. Not to say there isn't anything to laugh at. Cho and Penn once again have dynamite chemistry, and a handful of their one liners do resonate, but those graces alone can only carry a movie so far in the long run.
Needless to say, it wouldn't be a Harold & Kumar movie without the presence of Neil Patrick Harris, who enters the picture midway and runs away with it for about twenty minutes. He's horny, he's high, and he's hallucinating, which is helpful since he's able to distract from just how wrong most everything else feels. It really was, for me, that painful to watch more often than not. I came out of it hoping that maybe the theatrical success of this chapter will lead to another, because I'd hate to give up completely on two characters as engaging as Harold and Kumar.
Which leads me to how the movie really loses its sharp touch. SPOILER Harold and Kumar accidentally end up in the Texas home of George W. Bush, who has already been spoofed in many a movie. Even though I was disappointed up until then, I had a small glimmer of hope that maybe the filmmakers had found a creative way for our heroes to fuck with the president. Instead, W. smokes weed with them, mispronounces words, and makes a statement about loving your country even if you don't love your government. Wow. Throw that in with a lame romantic subplot for Kumar (complete with his beloved ex about to marry a Republican jerk, although I must confess I smiled at Kumar's dorky poem) and all we're left with is the first hugely anticipated misfire of the year. Better luck next time, boys.
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Copyright, Hell and Beyond, 2008
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