HOW HIGH
How low is this comedy? Very.
Running time: 87 minutes. Rated R (drug, toilet and sex humor). At the Empire, Broadway & 84th St., Union Square, others.
IT’S hard to imagine a comedy that casts Fred Willard as the chancellor of Harvard being totally awful, but “How High” – a sort of stoner version of “Legally Blonde” – comes close to head of the crass.
Rappers Method Man and Redman – who shouldn’t give up their day jobs – don’t exactly light up the screen as Silas and Jamal, a pair of Staten Island potheads who smoke the ashes of a pal incinerated after falling asleep while watching “Field of Dreams.”
The dead guy (Chuck Davis) comes back as a ganja vision and helps them ace the THC college-entrance exams, which gets them into Harvard.
What little story there is pits the boyz against Dean Cain (Obba Babatunde), an uptight Uncle Tom whom they loosen up with marijuana brownies.
When not relieving coeds of their virginity or getting high, Silas is pursuing Lauren (Lark Vorhees of TV’s “Saved by the Bell”), who is researching Ben Franklin’s drug habits.
Jamal, meanwhile, is sweet-talking Jamie (Essence Atkins), the daughter of the vice president of the United States.
The latter is briefly portrayed by Jeffrey Jones, who must need a paycheck as badly as Hector Elizondo and Spalding Gray, who turn up as the crew coach and black studies professor, respectively.
Mostly sexist and moronic, “How High” is a slapdash collection of tired drug jokes, fish-out-of-water clichés, projectile vomiting and gross-out humor (John Quincy Adam’s skeleton is dug up for smoking).
This mess was directed with no skill whatsoever by Jesse Dylan, whose father, Bob, once urged us all to get stoned.