Just the other day, while watching one of Byron Allen’s six or seven late-night entertainment shows, I caught a segment with Neil Patrick Harris promoting Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. When an actor who portrayed a child prodigy doctor on a T.V. series 20 years ago has resorted to self parody in a movie starring Kal Penn, you know the apocalypse is near.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Harold and Kumar Escape, etc. was originally planned as a direct-to-video release, but was later changed to theatrical. Well, we all know how well that worked out for 88 Minutes!

The evidence is really piling up. As if the offensively unfunny trailer weren’t enough, now we learn that we might have been spared all this talk and aggressive marketing if a few studio execs had decided to go the direct-to-video route with this unfortunate excuse for entertainment.

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a moderate 55%, which might not seem too bad at first glance. But take a look at the excerpts for some of the allegedly positive reviews:

If frat boy gutter humor is what it takes to get Korean-, Indian-, Latino-, African- and Jewish-Americans major roles in the same Hollywood film, so be it. Just don’t stay in that gutter. And wherever you go next, be sure to keep Corddry and Harris around.

- Gina Carbone, Seacoast Newspapers

Giddy brain-dead fun that goes to such pains to debunk stereotypes that the debunking itself becomes a joke.

- Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com

The jokes all revolve around weed, stereotypes, and Neil Patrick Harris; the stereotype stuff is by far the funniest.

- J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

Weed, stereotypes, and Neil Patrick Harris, you say? Sign me up!

It’s been advised that I stop writing before my true hostility begins to show; if you are Harold and Kumar fan, please don’t come after me with weapons. Instead, play some Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle trivia on Kwanzoo.

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