According to the official web site for “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” the film claims to be “in the fine cinematic tradition of ‘Dude, Where’s My Car?’ and ‘Road Trip.'” Anyone who can read that claim with a straight face will probably enjoy the movie. For those who cringe at that statement, avoid this mediocre stoner/road trip comedy.

Harold (John Cho) is an uptight, meek Korean investment banker who gets bul’lied into doing his co-workers work and is unable to even speak to the girl of his dreams. His roommate, Kumar (Kal Penn), is an Indian American medical school candidate who botches his interviews so his father will continue to pay for his apartment. They both enjoy getting stoned.

One night after enjoying some urban pharmaceuticals the pair decide to go to White Castle to satisfy their “craving.” The trip proves to be more difficult than they expected as they ricochet from comic incident to comic incident.

“We wanted to capture that feeling of driving around in the middle of the night and having fun,” co-writer Hayden Schlossberg said.

The films’ other writer Jon Hurwitz said film is about a universal need that is rarely addressed in film.

“It’s very relatable. Everyone has experienced hunger,” Hurwitz said, “Not everyone has fallen in love and there are plenty of movies about that.”

“Harold and Kumar” seems to rely on a random college drug/sex/gross-out comedy-joke-generator, much of what it passes off as humor. Situations involving a boil-covered Christian fundamentalist with a sexually open wife or a run-in with an cheetah are thrown hap-hazardly at the characters, easy jokes are made, and then brushed aside for the next ludicrous encounter. The comedy is as fast paced, lightweight and greasy as the hamburgers they’re in search of. There are also plenty of stereotypical stoner jokes about munchies and avoiding cops that tend to be staples of the genre.

The directing by Danny Leiner (“Dude Where’s My Car?”) is generally unoriginal and uninteresting. There is a carelessness to the camera work that matches the slapdash plot. The movies set design and lighting have a lo-fi aesthetic that works for the more realistic and subdued scenes but conflicts badly with the many over-the-top gags that make up most of the film. The genuinely interesting bits of the film (mostly revolving around the ethnic identities of Harold and Kumar) get pushed aside in favor of flavorless slapstick.

The issue of identity was very important to the writer who had many Korean-American and Indian-American friends in high school who said they”never saw themselves portrayed on the big screen.”

The way the two characters deal with the stereotypes and expectations of them are easily the most refreshing and clever aspects of the film. Harold’s discomfort with having to deal with an overly proper Asian Student Society and Kumars intentionally botching his medical school interview are particularly amusing.

Despite the weak material they are given, John Cho and Kal Penn turn in decent comedic performances. The duo has a believable chemistry reminiscent of Dante and Randall from “Clerks” and they play off one another well, even in otherwise weak scenes. Penn (who even sounds like Randall) has an amusingly ironic detachment to the proceedings as though he understands how cheesy the film is and is trying to have fun in spite of how bad it is. Cho does a nice “frustrated guy trying to do right” routine that wrings as much from the lackluster material as he can.

“What I was trying to do was play an effective straight man,” Cho said, “and play a character that made sense.”

Despite the few strong points in the film, only those as high and/or drunk as the protagonists should enjoy it. “Harold and Kumar” is a skippable road-trip/stoner film. Go to a real White Castle, get a sack of 10 and people watch instead.