For some reason I actually found the first film pretty enjoyable and it had enough laughs for me to justify coming back to the second film. The title made me think that the story would also lend itself to be a fairly one-sided p1ss-take of the US handling of the terrorism issue and I hoped this would add a sharp element to the otherwise stoner comedy. That the film opens with Kumar taking a dump and then ejaculating up over himself amazingly did not dissuade me from this belief. However as the film went on I realised that there would be nothing particularly smart about this film and that it is all about the stoner comedy as per the first film - which, like I said, I enjoyed.
Sadly though the second film falls way short of the mark in terms of laughs. In terms of being graphic, crude and obvious it is right on point though, but the problem is that little of this material is funny when it comes to execution. So in theory the scene with George Bush (one of the worst impersonators of him I've seen) could have been barbed and cutting, instead is just basic and surprisingly lazy. In fact "lazy" is a word that sprung to mind several times throughout the film mainly because of the lack of creativity within it and also the amount of box ticking. The lavatorial humour, the excessive nudity and usual homophobia (except of course when it comes to girls) is all present but only appears to be there so that the target audience can tick them off - at very least they linger long after the joke is made. In terms of playing with stereotypes and racial profiling it does offer more and there is a certain delight in seeing so many groups generalised and slandered, however again it is hard not to feel more could have been made of it. Maybe I'm expecting too much but there was opportunity for satire to be slipped in here but it never came and it is a lesser film for its absence.
It did still make me laugh but way too infrequently for me to enjoy as a comedy even if it does have really enjoyable hits. As before the sheer juxtaposition of Neil Patrick Harris' public image with that presented in these films makes his parts easy to enjoy, even if it is a bit too "easy" on this occasion and just feels like a retread of the first film. Cho and Penn make engaging leads and they play well to the material - that much of it isn't that good is not down to their performances, if anything they deserved better. The support cast features a wonderfully daft turn from Corddy but mostly just minor roles doing the basics.
Harold & Kumar 2 may suggest a political edge with its title but ultimately it is not much more than a repeat of the first film but with increased nudity and crudity but decreased laughter rate and entertainment value. It will probably still please teenage boys with the basics but offers little to a wider audience.
