Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

From the director of Dude, Where's My Car? comes its de facto sequel -- or duh facto, considering it inhales more marijuana than its predecessor by a good pound or so. Neither are as dumb as they look: Dude played like a stoner's Memento, and Harold and Kumar features as its protagonists a bright Indian-American who disavows his med-profession heritage (Kal Penn) and an overworked Korean-American forced to do the work of the white slackers in his office space (John Cho). The apologist might laud it for writing in Ethnic Types where white guys would work fine -- though Cho and Penn make a nifty comic team, like Cheech and Chong smoking dope through a college diploma -- but it's passable only because of a few decent gags, chief among them one that features Neil Patrick Harris as Neil Patrick Harris on Ecstasy. And the one with the bag of weed the size of Neil Patrick Harris. Funnier when high -- what isn't? -- Harold and Kumar may also serve as the first infomercial for weed and burgers.