Kathmandu:

Let us take a few lines to define the word cult when it applies to a movie. When one is young and, hopefully, impressionable you watch a film that seems pretty daring with nudity, all kinds of scatological humor and in general is a rebellion against older people. Then the years rush past and somewhere in your mind the movie seems much, much better than it actually was. And you and your friend nudge each other and say “Do you remember?”

Now you have a cult.

Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle did better on DVD where they found a huge fan base. Now that was a cult movie.

Directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg did an encore with Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, which is about potty (the movie opens with Harold taking a shower while Kumar is taking a dump) marijuana, the bodies nether regions and is a chase movie to boot.

It is hysterical.

Kumar is of course our favourite Indian in America who wants to stay stoned 24/7. Harold is his cannier South East Asian friend who wants to stay potted 24/7 but only under the right circumstances.

Say critic Kit Bowen, “These lovable stoners just grow on you.

It starts a couple hours after they’ve successfully completed their White Castle quest, with Harold’s vow to follow his lady love to Amsterdam. At the airport, Kumar runs into his ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Danneel Harris) and is shocked to discover she’s about to get married to a guy he considers a real ‘douche bag’. But once they make it onto the plane, all manner of hell breaks loose: Mistaken for terrorists (yes, it does have something to do with marijuana and a bong), the two end up escaping from Guantanamo Bay and embarking on one outrageous misadventure after another to clear their names — and wreck Vanessa’s wedding in the process. High times, dude!

The reteaming of Penn and Cho, who simply click on all cylinders as the pot-smoking former college roommates who couldn’t be more different yet so connected. Even though you cringe at the ridiculous predicaments they find themselves in, these two guys sell it lock, stock and barrel. Supporting them is Daily Show’s Rob Corddry, who overplays it as the hard-ass bigoted Homeland Security agent going after the boys. But it’s the weird characters they meet along the way that make the Harold and Kumar movies, including The Office’s Ed Helms as an interpreter; Missi Pyle as a forward-thinking Southern hick; and, of course, Neil Patrick Harris, once again playing himself as a debauched, mushroom-taking, unicorn-spotting moron.

Writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg probably never thought they’d be back again after their first Harold and Kumar Goes to White Castle effort. But here they are, doing it all over again. Maybe it was a fluke the original touched a comical nerve in those Gen-X slackers who made H&K the new Cheech and Chong of the 21st Century.”

It is a cult hit waiting for the next misadventure. But Hollywood can’t wait too long, the boys are beginning to show their age. I suppose if you have enough smoke around your face, you can do Harold and Kumar forever.

Incidentally watch Rob Corddry as the Homeland Security mad man, who tries to force the truth out of and African-American witness by pouring out a can of grape soda as his attempt torturing Harold and Kumar’s Jewish buddies throwing pennies in place of Judases 30 pieces of silver. He will be in the next installment.