Starring: Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, Yuki Matsuzaki, John Cleese, John Cleese

Directed by: Harald Zwart

Sony Pictures

The Official Site of The Pink Panther 2

Discuss The Pink Panther 2the boards!

I’ve been having some trouble finding the right words to describe Pink Panther 2, the inevitable sequel to Steve Martin’s revival of everyone’s favorite bumbling detective. I’ve been looking for the right turn of phrase to express my distain for this sloppy, poorly planned, paycheck of a film but in doing so I’ve found myself taking a closer look at what the character is all about, remembering a few brief moments in the film and thinking, “Well hell – that was spot on Inspector Jacques Clouseau!�

Don’t get your hopes up. While the glimpses of the great character are a welcome presence, for the large part The Pink Panther 2 is an uninspired mess. It has none of the charm that the franchise should be oozing and I’m not sure whom to blame.

I may be the minority here but I kind of enjoyed Steve Martin’s first outing in the Pink Panther. It was one of those things where I didn’t expect much from the film and I didn’t love it at first but it eventually grew on me. The over-done accent, the pompous stupidity and the willingness to mispronounce “hamburger� enough times that it eventually became funny were a good fit that I’d come to really enjoy in its endless replay on TBS last month. So what happens when a sequel is made for something you like but one of the major factors of you liking it is that you didn’t expect to like it at all? I’m going in with a new frame a reference, a new level of expectation. It was doomed to fail from the start.

Perhaps it’s not fair to compare the two. It struck me very quickly that The Pink Panther 2 is a very different from its predecessor. As with any sequel - this time the stakes have been raised. The Pink Panther diamond is one of four treasures world wide that have been stolen by the mysterious cat burglar identifying himself only as The Tornado. The world’s greatest detectives, including Clouseau have been gathered together to crack the case!

The film becomes about figuring out who’s behind the robberies and, as you should, you begin to suspect the members of this dream team of detectives. With such a great cast rounding out the group, including Andy Garcia and Alfred Molina, it’s possible I expected too much from the film but is it wrong for me to want it to be good? The first film managed to tell a silly story with enough clever twists to make you think you’d been underestimating its slapstick humor and dim lead. That may not be the point of the Clouseau but I always liked the idea that there was a method to his madness that, in his own incompetent way, he sort of knew what he was doing. That’s clearly not the case in the sequel. Sure he solves the case that no one else could but it seems like a complete afterthought and an even greater let down when you realize how uneventful the trip there was.

Those brief moments where you see the iconic character become the standout moments of the film but I’m not sure seeing the film, as a whole would just ruin them for you. A visit to the Pope results in some great Clouseau dialogue that falls apart completely when he decides he should reenact the crime in full Pope gear. A stealthy entrance into a suspect’s mansion is one of the few laugh-out-loud moments of the entire movie until you realize there was no real point to it… I admire Martin’s willingness to commit here and I would say that what he does here still works. I’m just not sure there’s enough of a plot around him to warrant putting him through the ropes again.

Rating: 3 out of 10 - A gigantic disappointment from a franchise I’d thought was on the right track. It seems to have gotten trapped in simple cases and tired ideas. Maybe it’s good that the movie did so poorly at the box office because if they continued in the same direction part three surely would have featured (mild spoiler) Baby Clouseau. –shudder-

There is absolutely no way. I’ll admit to circling the first Steve Martin Pink Panther film, especially around Black Friday when it was part of some buy-one-get-one-free deal, but after watching the second film I don’t want anything to do with this franchise on DVD. Watch – the third one is going to be brilliant and I’m going to end up buying them all…

I pulled the old switcheroo on ya! Instead of making fun of the Pink Panther I turned it around on the innocent young star of Heroes. Actually that was Yeo’s doing. I’d written the joke with Dane Cook in mind as the innocent target but still knew that when it came time to lay down the dialogue I would go in a different direction. I knew it was too obvious and I knew it would be nothing but a placeholder for some other poor unsuspecting soul.

I told Yeo that she’d be delivering the punch line in the comic and she immediately said that it should be Hayden Panettiere. She said it as if it were the choice that had been staring me in the face all along and I just couldn’t see it. As if the world at large had decided that Hayden’s 15 minutes of fame were up and it was time for her to fade away into Noxima commercials for good.

I personally don’t have anything against Hayden Panettiere but Yeo has developed a strong distaste. Any Claire related story from Heroes makes her cringe, so you can imagine how difficult the whole “Save the Cheerleader� season was for her. Yeo can’t get past the bad acting but, as we all know, quality of acting isn’t as much a priority as how shiny your hair is or short your skirt is when you’re acting badly on a hit TV series.

The voting on which movie I should tackle next has wound down and with over 700 votes it’s been overwhelmingly decided that that movie should be Pan’s Labyrinth. I’m both excited and intimidated by your choice. I loved this movie in theaters and it’ll be great to revisit it after a couple of years, but Pan’s is complex and complicated film that can be interpreted in may different ways plus, in the time since its release, it has become a cherished dark classic. I’m afraid to see it again and not love it as much as I did so long ago. Here’s hoping it holds up.

I hope you guys liked this style of voting. Please feel free to share your thoughts. I’m pretty happy with the turn out and I’m anxious to make it a regular thing so, at the very least, you can expect to see the same format next week.

Thanks for reading!