Rent and see the "unrated" version. This could be the most over-the-top live action film since "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle." What appeals to me is the extremely extreme toilet humor: it is meant to send the audience into hysterics, rather than challenge cultural mores or push the envelope. That envelope was pushed long ago... What's perhaps not appreciated of Harold and Kumar is their genuine lack of immaturity. Say what? Indeed, they're adults and get themselves into adult situations, albeit bad ones. They also do their best to get themselves out of said situations by their own bootstraps. Harold works for a living, Kumar will, soon, blaze through medical school. Buut for now, it's time to light up... This kind of high-minded, deadpan bathroom humor can trace itself back to Monty Python's Flying Circus. The drug humor is a direct descendant of the best of the Cheech and Chong films (my favorite is "Nice Dreams"). The completely off-the-wall physical comedy is straight out of a Three Stooges playbook. Watching "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," last night, I realized that I was watching an NC-17 version of "The Great White North," where the Mackenzie brothers scheme to get free beer but end up getting involved in a nefarious conspiracy... all the time either not really caring or questioning things that look out of the ordinary. Consider their brief stint at Gitmo: when faced with the imminent prospects of a "cockmeat sandwich," Kumar, rather than think his way out of the situation, is genuinely perplexed at the sexuality of the guards. he's not trying to be slick or think his way out of things: he really wants to know - a very funny "how can you think of such things at a time like this" moment. Most of the film is like that and, of course, Neil Patrick Harris' reprise of his "Ubermensch" persona outdoes what he did in 2004.
