Kal Penn (left) stars as 'Kumar' and John Cho (right) stars as 'Harold' in a sequel to the DVD comedy hit. (Photo provided by New Line Cinema)

The poster for "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" is the best thing about the movie, depicting the brainy potheads in orange prison jumpsuits staring in disbelief from behind a wire-mesh fence.

Actually seeing them in motion is mostly an anticlimactic affair as the sequel follows the fitfully funny, fitfully too-stupid-to-live pattern of 2004's "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle."

That first movie fizzled in its theatrical release but found an audience on DVD, leading to Chapter 2 in the adventures of best buds Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn).

Now, they're off to Amsterdam so Harold can woo his dream girl (Paula Garces), and he and Kumar can openly smoke all the weed they want in the land of legalized marijuana.

Ultra-deranged Homeland Security zealot Ron Fox (Rob Corddry) dispatches Harold and Kumar to Guantanamo, from which they escape, return to the United States and make a beeline for the wedding of Kumar's old flame (Danneel Harris), whose fiance has White House connections that could clear our heroes.

Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who wrote the first movie and direct the sequel from their own screenplay, connect here and there with some funny terrorism-induced paranoia and political gags.

Hurwitz and Schlossberg inevitably revive memorable moments from the first movie.

Also returning for a brief bit are David Krumholtz and Eddie Kaye Thomas as Harold and Kumar's neighbors.

Despite the bigger, bolder scenario, the new movie generally delivers more of the same, and like its predecessor, too much of it is sadly lame.

Dumb as it is, the sequel maintains and deepens the natural, amiable rapport Cho and Penn developed in the first movie.

- By David Germain / Associated Press