That Bumbling Inspector Looks Different These Days
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/movies/10pant.html
February 10, 2006
MOVIE REVIEW | 'THE PINK PANTHER'
That Bumbling Inspector Looks Different These Days
By STEPHEN HOLDENIn "The Pink Panther," the image of Steve Martin, frantically waving around a couple of priceless vases in which his fists have gotten stuck, resurrects for a moment the giddy golden years (the early 1960's) of a comedy franchise that petered out more than 20 years ago. When he removes one of those pottery boxing gloves (worthless imitations, it turns out), he does it the delicate way: by smashing it on a priceless table, which promptly collapses into a heap of sticks.
But because this is 2006, there is also an obligatory nod to modern gross-out comedy. It comes in a scene in which Mr. Martin barges into a recording studio midsession and rushes into the sound booth, only to release an explosion of flatulence that is amplified for all to hear. What would a contemporary comedy be without a little explosion of gas? I would say better off.
The tug of war between today and yesterday is illustrated by a Viagra joke, in which Mr. Martin desperately tries to retrieve a magic blue pill after it accidentally tumbles down a drain in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. So mechanically inept that he never met a light bulb that didn't explode in his hand, his character undertakes an impromptu plumbing expedition that results in flood, fire and mountains of soggy plaster.
That character, of course, is Inspector Jacques Clouseau, the idiotic, bumbling French policeman with a mighty ego, immortalized by Peter Sellers. Mr. Martin, to his credit, makes a game show of stepping into shoes that no one should be asked to fill. The good news is that his meticulous, witty performance offers a polished, likable gloss on a classic comic figure. Wearing a skinny mustache, his eyes narrowed to slits of suspicious stupidity, his arms clamped to his sides like a tin soldier's, Mr. Martin's Clouseau suggests a refined, white-haired version of Charlie Chaplin's Hitler. Clouseau's ridiculous French accent also elicits chuckles during an English lesson in which he repeatedly garbles the word "hamburger," getting it worse with each try.
The not-so-good news is that Mr. Martin's craftsmanship can't hold a candle to Sellers's instinctive genius. Where Mr. Martin approaches farce intellectually, Sellers worked from the gut. An unpredictable comic earthquake, he was sublimely ridiculous from the inside out. Because Mr. Martin does it in reverse, you follow the train of thought behind each well-timed maneuver, and there is no element of surprise.
Despite its bright spots, much of "The Pink Panther" feels like trying on old clothes that no longer fit and look a lot shabbier than you anticipated before you dug them out of the closet. That may not be true of Henry Mancini's forever jaunty theme song, recycled for continuity. But the old pulling-the-drapes-back routine to expose either no one hiding behind them or the wrong person, who has just been brutally pummeled, is recycled too many times in too familiar ways.
More often than not, the butt of these routines is Clouseau's ambitious superior officer, Dreyfus (Kevin Kline), who calls on him to solve the murder of a coach who has just led the French soccer team to victory over China. At his moment of triumph, the coach is killed by a poisoned dart, while his lover, the international pop star Xania (Beyoncé Knowles), hovers at his side. Amid the hubbub, his engagement ring, a hideous (and hideously expensive) pink diamond (the Pink Panther), vanishes.
Desperate to win the Medal of Honor, Dreyfus schemes to become a national hero by taking over the case and solving it once Clouseau and Ponton (Jean Reno), the sidekick dispatched to keep tabs on Clouseau, have botched the investigation. This throwaway plot is even dumber and more makeshift than my description makes it sound.
"The Pink Panther" reteams Mr. Martin with the director Shawn Levy, who piloted his hit "Cheaper by the Dozen" to nine-figure grosses. Here, as in "Cheaper by the Dozen," Mr. Levy's cold, streamlined direction gives the movie the feel of a mechanical contraption manipulated by remote control with a nervous finger on the fast-forward button. Many of the jokes barely have time to register before we're on to the next stunt. Blake Edwards, who created "The Pink Panther" and stuck with the franchise through thick and thin, relished pure silliness enough to trust its natural rhythms to propel the story.
"The Pink Panther" is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It has mild off-color humor.
Opens today nationwide.
Directed by Shawn Levy; written by Steve Martin and Len Blum, based on a story by Mr. Blum and Michael Saltzman and on characters created by Maurice Richlin and Blake Edwards and the "Pink Panther" films of Mr. Edwards; director of photography, Jonathan Brown; edited by George Folsey Jr. and Brad E. Wilhite; music by Christophe Beck; production designer, Lilly Kilvert; produced by Robert Simonds; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 92 minutes.
WITH: Steve Martin (Inspector Clouseau), Kevin Kline (Dreyfus), Jean Reno (Gilbert Ponton), Beyoncé Knowles (Xania), Kristin Chenoweth (Cherie), Emily Mortimer (Nicole) and Henry Czerny (Yuri).
Correction: Feb. 13, 2006
A film review of "The Pink Panther" in Weekend on Friday misidentified the actor who plays Agent 006. It is Clive Owen, who said he did not want to be the new James Bond ― not Daniel Craig, who has taken the role.
