“Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” is the second film in the “Harold & Kumar” series. I went into this one hoping for an improvement over the original but I found myself disappointed by it. It’s got a few little bits that work but most of the film feels pretty mediocre at best.

In this film, Harold (John Cho “Star Trek) and Kumar (Kal Penn “Superman Returns”) are on their way to Amsterdam when they get mistaken for terrorists and sent to Guantanamo Bay. They quickly break out and a whole bunch of really random things happen such as meeting the Ku Klux Klan, a cyclops kid and Neil Patrick Harris (“Starship Troopers”)… again.

Harold and Kumar were definitely more amusing in the first film. Here they’re just kind-of there. Most of the side characters aren’t very interesting so in that respect this film is quite similar to the first one because that one failed to have interesting side characters as well. This time the side characters feel really dull though because they’re not even the usual weirdos people bump into in road movies, they’re sort-of like they’re characters that didn’t make the cut for the first film. Neil Patrick Harris isn’t very impressive.

“Escape From Guantanamo Bay” features a ton of dirty sex jokes, nudity, drugs and racism; most of the time it’s pure sleaze and fails to have any brains. If you enjoyed the first one then maybe you’ll enjoy this one but if you’re like me and you didn’t really get the attraction with the first one then I can see you eagerly skipping this if you ever have the opportunity to watch it. If the “Harold & Kumar” films are going to work then they need to be less concerned with the gross comedy and more concerned with the plot and characters.