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We haven’t had a truly excellent stoner movie in a while - Dazed and Confused (1993) was great, but Half-Baked wasn’t quite as good as it should have been - so the mere fact that director Danny Leiner and his cast seem perfectly content to make a crowd-pleasing, bathroom-humor-laden laugh fest is enough to give H&K a wonderful reputation, even if its filmmaking style and prowess aren’t quite up to snuff.

I was willing to overlook it the first time around, but while there are more than a few referential off-color jokes and more pot references than a Grateful Dead concert movie, Harold and Kumar as a whole is not quite as monumental as the various classic moments within it. Anthony Anderson’s cameo fifteen minutes into the film is hilarious, as is the Neil Patrick Harris cameo and our boys’ run-in with a hideously ugly tow truck driver’s busty wife. But the overreaching arcs and narrative whole of the thing is definitely lacking.

What Harold and Kumar gets completely right are the small things. The first time our protagonists sit on the couch and proceeded to get loaded, it’s magical. With just the right types of laughs, an awesome inhaled-too-fast-so-now-you’ve-got-the- coughs-man giggle-fest, and an absolutely hilarious “Marijuana Kills” faux public service announcement - as the kid on the TV screen sticks a shotgun in his mouth, he screams, “I’m so high... nothing can hurt me!” – the short, tangential scene takes on a life of its own.

Which makes revisiting the film on DVD both an entertaining and frustrating experience. The Battleshits scene with the two English girls in the ladies’ room? Marvelous. Kumar’s dream sequence involving falling in love and marrying a giant bag of marijuana? Outrageously funny. But there’s very little to glue the film together. What it ends up being is an unfortunately average movie with a butt-load of hilarious set pieces within it.

Is it the best stoner movie in a while? Definitely. But Harold and Kumar could have been more.

Oh, well. Pick your intoxicating substance of choice and enjoy.

Video: How does the disc look?

Hopefully fans of H&K will be too messed up while watching this DVD to realize the video transfer here isn’t excellent. It’s clean - line quality is fine – and color depth and allocation is appropriate, but black levels fluctuate almost from scene to scene and shadowing is distinctly below average. But even so, while this transfer isn’t top-notch, it appropriates the film’s simple visual style legitimately. Not bad, but not great.

Audio: How does the disc sound?

The 5.1 Dolby Surround mix here is strong. Dialogue is crisp and loud, atmospherics are well-exploited and immersive, and while many of the film’s music cues are a bit too boomy, everything here is just fine. And the sound design as far as effects are concerned is as playful and rambunctious as anything in the film. Great.

Also included are a 2.0 Dolby Surround mix, English and Spanish subtitles and closed captions.

Supplements: What goodies are there?

First up is a twelve-minute interview where Bobby Lee interviews John Cho and Kal Penn while he drives them around in his SUV. It’s actually pretty funny – the guys are in fine form (especially when Kal Penn discusses his tragic jellyfish incident). And in accordance with the most responsible and artistic cinematic elements, The Art of the Fart is a chance for the craftsmen behind the film (and its notorious “Battleshits” sequence) to elucidate on their astonishing achievement. Hilarious.

Then come three screen-specific audio commentaries – one from director Danny Leiner and Harold and Kumar themselves (Cho and Penn), one from writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (and the real Harold Lee), and then an “extreme” commentary with Extreme Sports Punk #1, Danny Bochart. It’s overkill, to be sure. While the two leading actors tell some great stories about working with Doogie and everything, everybody else doesn’t keep the same level of consistency. It might have been a louder, rowdier, crazier experience if all these guys recorded their commentaries simultaneously. And if they were all high at the time (assuming they weren’t already).

Then we get some Drive-Thru Bites (about 20 minutes’ worth): a discussion with director Danny Leiner, Brooke D’Orsay and Kate Kelton (the “Battleshits” duo), Steve Braun, the head of the redneck gang that hassles H&K, Eddie Kaye Thomas and David Krumholtz (the Jewish stoners from down the hall), the writers of the film (Jon Hurwitz and Kayden Schlossberg), resident bombshell Paula Garces, university interviewer Fred Willard, and (drum roll please) NEIL PATRICK HARRIS. I wish there was a play-all feature included; there are some very funny moments here.

The 10-minute featurette, A Trip to the Land of Burgers, investigates the trippy hallucination scene in the film. There are also twelve minutes of deleted scenes (and an outtake reel) with optional commentary with Leiner, Cho and Penn. We also get trailers for Blade: Trinity, Festival Express, The Butterfly Effect, Run Ronnie Run, and H&K’s theatrical trailer. Last is a music video for All Too Much’s “Yeah (Dream of Me)”.

Also worth noting are the goofy interactive menus actually starring Jason Cho and Kal Penn. As with most expanded menus, things are funniest the first time around and get more and more repetitious down the line, but hey, too much of a good thing is still a good thing.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

Included are some very nifty extras: A Script-to-Screen comparison including storyboards and the film’s original screenplay, as well as a hilarious Me and Weedy photo game of sorts where you get to play with your own very beloved gigantic bag of marijuana. Lovely. Also included are a handful of weblinks.

Parting Thoughts: