When audiences last saw Harold and Kumar, the stoner duo was returning triumphantly from a lengthy excursion to White Castle.

“Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” wastes no time, picking up the very next morning as Kumar (Kal Penn) sits on the toilet, crapping out what’s left of the meal. If you freeze-frame at the right moment, you can see him crapping out the script for this movie as well.

The duo burst onto the scene in a plume of marijuana smoke in 2004 with the aptly named “Harold & Kumar go to White Castle.” While their epic quest to obtain processed rat meat wasn’t necessarily groundbreaking in terms of stoner story structure, the casting certainly was.

Penn and John Cho’s celebrity status hasn’t risen much since their first outing but their ambitions have. “Harold & Kumar go to White Castle” was an issues-free satire of a couple of potheads looking for fast food.

With “Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” Harold and Kumar set their sights a little higher, taking on racial profiling, the war on terror and foreign policy in the Bush age. Unfortunately, the film’s political observations rarely rise above the level of the average episode of “Lil’ Bush.”

There’s a scene in the first “Harold & Kumar” where the duo use their ethnicity to their advantage, posing as surgeons in a hospital in an effort to obtain medical marijuana. Their racial status backfires on them this time around when, en route to Amsterdam, an old lady catches Kumar trying to light a homemade bong in the airplane’s bathroom — a bong that looks a little too much like a bomb to this paranoid, old white lady.

The two are taken into custody, left at the mercy of a couple of homeland security investigators played with surprising blandness by ex-“Daily Show” correspondents Rob Corddry and Ed Helms.

After Corddry mistakes Harold and Kumar for “North Korea and al-Qaeda working together,” it’s off to Guantanamo Bay. This is where the stoner political satire is supposed to kick in, but lame gay jokes that happen to take place in a prison cell in Guantanamo Bay are still just lame gay jokes. Never assume that stoners will laugh at anything.

As the title suggests, the two eventually do escape from Gitmo. They stow aboard with a few illegal immigrants on their way to Florida. After stumbling aimlessly through the Everglades, they run into old pal Neil Patrick Harris, played with self-mocking gusto by none other than Neil Patrick Harris.

While Harris brings some much-needed energy to the film, he doesn’t get the film completely back on track. There’s no explanation offered for why Harris is tripping on mushrooms and cruising through southern Florida. But after a few minutes, viewers begin to wonder why the film can’t just follow Harris on his adventure, whatever that might be.

Harold and Kumar’s shtick — Harold as the jittery straight man against Kumar’s anything-goes wackiness — is tried and true. The duo’s journey to Amsterdam is supposed to be the fun part, yet there are many instances where all you can think is, “Are we there yet?”

Perhaps the thrill is gone. What was once fresh  is now just yesterday’s brick weed.

 

“Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” was written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. It received one and a half out of four stars.