Eye Candy #208 - "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay"

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: Whereas the first H&K movie was a mild diversion, sitting through the second H&K movie is a lot like punishment. Conceived originally as a direct-to-video sequel, this film is almost completely devoid of laughs, with the humor apparently replaced by gratuitous nudity (we're talking waist DOWN shots here). Because I'm a big boy and can watch whatever the hell I want, I watched the unrated version. And if the unrated version, with all its nudity, was a lousy movie, I can only imagine how interminable the rated version was. This time around, the 21st century's answer to Cheech and Chong gets mistaken for terrorists, pine for old flames, escape from Guantanamo Bay, hang-out with inbred rednecks, attend a small Klan "rally", encounter H&K stalwart Neil Patrick Harris (or NPH), go to a whorehouse, parachute into Crawford, Texas, have a heart-to-heart with GW Bush, and disrupt a wedding. Slow, overlong by at least 20 minutes, with a fairly weak GW Bush impersonator (they really needed Steve Bridges), the jokes just don't fall flat, they stumble, trip, plummet to the ground, roll over, fart, and then die. When you rely on NPH to carry your entire movie, schticking himself the whole time, you're in big trouble (not that NPH couldn't do it, it's just that the movie is called "HAROLD AND KUMAR" and not "NEIL PATRICK HARRIS"). Only funny bit in the movie: actor Christopher Meloni (from "Law & Order") had a great cameo in the first H&K and is back in H&K2 as the insane Grand Wizard at the Klan "rally" who has Tourette's. Woodchuck sez, "Would give it 1 ½ stars, but only because of the nudity."