An Inspector Falls | Steve Martin is a wild and crazy homme in The Pink Panther 2.
Directed by Harald Zwart. Starring Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Opens Fri, Feb 6.
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In the opening scene of The Pink Panther 2, Steve Martin is catapulted from the hood of a car across the Seine River all the way to the other side of Paris. If nothing else, this serves as a warning to viewers that the film they are about to watch is very, very silly. Actually, calling those 90 minutes of slapstick humour “silly” is a little generous, because this film is actually flat-out stupid — but a fun stupid.
Director Harald Zwart must have learned from his experience on his previous movie, Agent Cody Banks, that story is of little importance in these kinds of spy spoofs: he does virtually nothing to hide the fact that the plot of Pink Panther 2 is nearly identical to Steve Martin’s first Pink Panther movie: the Pink Panther diamond goes missing (again) and Inspector Clouseau (Steve Martin) is asked to find the culprit, only this time he’s aided by a team of international detectives. Having Clouseau collaborate with others is likely just an excuse to give Andy Garcia and Alfred Molina work, because it sure doesn’t add any new layers of complexity to the story. The only other changes are that John Cleese has replaced Kevin Kline as Chief Inspector Dreyfus and Beyoncé’s role as the exotic beauty has been commandeered by Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
It’s hard to care about the recycled plotline when you have Steve Martin playing the unfathomably clumsy Inspector Clouseau; this is the man, after all, who portrayed the lovable moron Navin R. Johnson to perfection in The Jerk. Martin is clearly overjoyed to be playing a buffoon again, and his enthusiasm for hurting himself in comical ways is infectious. One scene in particular, where Clouseau tries to sneak into a mansion, is shown on a bank of security camera monitors, which allows us to appreciate Martin’s still-sharp physical timing without any exaggerated sound effects. There’s something about seeing a man
accidentally break every piece of furniture in a room that brings out the part of me that secretly enjoys watching America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Though The Pink Panther 2 readily embraces mindless slapstick as its primary source of laughs, there are frequent attempts at verbal humour so asinine they’re embarrassing. The pride the film takes in its endless, unfunny jokes about Clouseau’s strong French accent is especially tiresome — Zwart emphasizes Clouseau’s mispronunciation of “hamburger” so insistently that it’s arguably a plot point.
But it would be asking too much of a movie about a clumsy detective for clever wordplay — or even a mystery worth solving. The identity of the thief Clouseau and his colleagues are after is pretty clear, even just after the opening credits, and you may find yourself wishing the film had put a little effort into crafting a more intriguing case for Clouseau to solve. But then someone gets hurt again and you stop thinking critically (or thinking about anything, for that matter).
Many have complained that these new Pink Panther movies are a deplorable attempt to erase the memory of Blake Edwards’ originals, but that would be a mistake; they just want to have their own fun. It’s true that it is not Peter Sellers playing Inspector Clouseau, but it is Steve Martin, and at least he’s doing this instead of another Cheaper by the Dozen.
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