‘Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay’ Not Rushdie-esque?

What could be a better setting for a travel-related screwball comedy than an offshore military prison many argue violates the Geneva Conventions? Sounds like the makings of a major yuck-fest, right? Actually, the premise for the new Harold and Kumar film, which opens today, sounds vaguely amusing as summarized by the New York Daily News’ Joe Neumaier: “Following their munchies-fueled mishaps in the first film, the Jersey college guys head to Amsterdam, but thanks to paranoid airline passengers and Kumar’s bomb-like bong, they’re mistaken for terrorists and shipped to Gitmo.”

But, shockingly, critics are not hot on the film.

Neumaier found it “a big fat missed opportunity.”

The Washington Post wasn’t impressed, either. But I was impressed that critic Stephen Hunter managed to invoke no less than Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul and Joseph Conrad in his review:

As second-generation Americans, their take on the United States is definitely from outside the usual dichotomies, giving them license to poke fun at both sides. They have the weird distance that the second gen confers. Second-genners have only theoretical commitment to the old country and don’t remember its hardships (like their more grateful parents) so they feel no axiomatic indebtedness to the new place. At the same time, they partake eagerly of the pleasures and corruptions of pop culture, and yet they are exiled from it, aware of the racist doubt their presence frequently conjures among people of different colors. How do such guys ever fit in? It’s a subject worthy of a V.S. Naipaul or a Salman Rushdie. Conrad could have taken a grand swing at it, and Updike already has. Writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg ain’t in that league. They’re much more comfortable with penis jokes.

The trailer features, among others, the often funny Rob Corddry, best known for his time on “The Daily Show.” He plays a Homeland Security officer:

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