Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Critic Reviews

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, a loosely strung-together collection of sex, race, and stoner jokes, is, by any rational standard, a terrible movie, yet I kept laughing at it, and I came out of the theatre in a good mood.

-David DenbyFull Review

A fitfully funny if somewhat less excellent sequel.

-Owen GleibermanFull Review

As much as I enjoyed the pot-fueled laughs and the sheer energetic lunacy of the original, I was really let down by this uninspired sequel.

-Richard Roeper

The jokes all revolve around weed, stereotypes, and Neil Patrick Harris; the stereotype stuff is by far the funniest.

-J. R. JonesFull Review

A guilty pleasure that retains the anarchic charms of the original.

-Claudia PuigFull Review

This is one of those rare pictures that can gross you out and make you think at one and the same time.

-Peter HowellFull Review

Harold and Kumar are pothead patriots in the first feel-good torture film.

-Richard CorlissFull Review

Most of the wannabe outrageous racial humor is too shallow to constitute real satire.

-Dana StevensFull Review

It's as if the filmmakers were doing something that impaired their concentration and made them lose focus on something they started.

-Mark RahnerFull Review

The film is carried by its charismatic stars, John Cho as Harold and Kal Penn as Kumar. Kumar plays Laurel to Harold's Hardy, continually getting the pair into messes. Cho is a marvel at displaying exasperation, his face contorting into a frown.

-Ruthe SteinFull Review

Offers a mix of nasty toilet jokes and sex gags, but the gratuitous nudity (male and female) and crazy cannabis-ness are there to serve a greater good: to mock social and political hypocrisy, a culture steeped in prejudice and pretense.

-Steven ReaFull Review

The whole film feels easily distracted and apt to laugh at anything. But that's okay. So is its target audience.

-Stephen WhittyFull Review

[The movie's] idiocy serves the cause of good sense and intelligence. And no, I'm not smoking anything.

-A.O. ScottFull Review

I didn't laugh anywhere near as much at this far less fresh sequel - which is broader, more vulgar, more scattershot, more overtly political and a lot less funny than it sounds on paper.

-Lou LumenickFull Review

Penn and Cho's stoner slapstick will doubtless please their obsessive fans.

-Logan HillFull Review

While Penn and Cho remain casually cool (they're hipper than the fools who spout bigoted cliches), the movie forgets to stay true to their characters or to itself.

-Joe NeumaierFull Review

With its intoxicating blend of frat boy humor and sociological satire, Escape From Guantanamo Bay is the comedy of the year so far.

-Colin CovertFull Review

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is no political tract, but it can be surprisingly bold.

-Liam LaceyFull Review

The film is far from an intelligent commentary on America's race relations...but at a time when race is at the forefront of the American discussion, it presents the topic in a way at which we can laugh.

-Adam GrahamFull Review

As is so often the case with sequels, this one feels like a retread, albeit on a bigger scale.

-Peter RainerFull Review

Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay embraces America's capacity for decency and kindness. The possibility that we could actually be that great country isn't just a pipe dream. Only sometimes you need a pipe to truly believe in it.

-Stephanie ZacharekFull Review

It's sporadically enjoyable in a silly, mindless way and it's hard not to laugh at least a few time while awash in all the bad taste.

-James BerardinelliFull Review

In all its mock outrage and its daring shots at hypocrisy, bigotry and the government, Harold & Kumar, the characters and the movie, lose their subversive innocence.

-Roger MooreFull Review

You find yourself smiling at some of the bits, wincing through many, many others, and ultimately wondering if the pacing would've improved had either H or K developed a terrible cocaine habit.

-Michael PhillipsFull Review

They're such lovable goofs that you can't help wishing their quest for White Castle fast food and their flight from Gitmo could live up to the sort of sharp satire these two bright boys deserve.

-David Germain

Unfortunately, nothing in Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo is funnier than its title.

-J. HobermanFull Review

In its own wacky way, Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is one of the ballsiest comedies to come out of Hollywood in a long time. No kidding.

-Joe LeydonFull Review

Lacks the fresh charm that made their first such an unexpected (if guilty) pleasure.

-John DeFore

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Critics

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Audience

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