2004’s Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was a textbook example of how the lowest of lowbrow comedy could engage pertinent social and political topics without losing its comic high, and the slightly belated sequel takes that logic to its extreme, albeit with diminishing and somewhat uneven results. Having the multi-ethnic stoner odd couple mistaken for terrorists, imprisoned at Gitmo, and then navigate the dangerous backwoods of the American South in an effort to clear their names is certainly a perfect setup for the gross-out comedy as geopolitical farce, and much of it works quite well, even if many of the jokes are retreads and Neil Patrick Harris’s return appearance as Neil Patrick Harris just doesn’t have the same deliriously unexpected bite it had four years ago. (Hollywood Jewel 16, Waco, TX)