Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
3/2/09
Some sequels match the original.
Some see the mistakes made before and improve on it. Some lose their
way and can't approach their predecessor. And some sequels simply
exist, lying there like halfhearted dinner theater remakes. I was
among the minority who enjoyed the 2006 remake of The Pink Panther,
but the heart and good cheer that made it work are mostly absent from The
Pink Panther 2, replaced by an omnipresent indifference. An excellent
cast keeps the plates spinning, and there are a few funny bits, but in
the end it's hard to muster more than a shrug about the result.
An infamous thief calling
himself The Tornado dropped off the radar almost ten years ago. But
now, he's back, stealing a host of International treasures. To combat
the menace, an International 'Dream Team” (I'd suggest a drinking game
taking a shot each time this phrase is used, but I wouldn't want your death
from alcohol poisoning on my conscience) is assembled. As much as
inspector Dreyfus(John Cleese, taking over for Kevin Kline) wishes to head
it himself, he's instead instructed to make Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin)
the French representative. Still basking in the glow of his heroism
in the original movie, Clouseau is still stuck in neutral when it comes
to his relationship with his assistant Nicole (Emily Mortimer). This
creates an opening for one of the Dream Team, Vicenzo (Andy Garcia), who
takes to wooing her with the same ferocity Tornado biographer Sonia (Aishwarya
Rai Bachchan) devotes to Clouseau himself. The team is rounded out
by deductive wiz Pepperidge (Alfred Molina) and computer expert Kenji (Yuki
Matsuzaki). Together, they pursue a trail of evidence that leads
through the estate of the Tornado's favorite dealer (Jeremy Irons) and
to evidence that would seem to confirm the identity of The Tornado.
But when Clouseau refuses to accept the Dream Team's findings, he once
again becomes a laughing stock. Could France's greatest detective
be wrong?
Steve Martin has always been
a less-than-ideal Clouseau: though his slapstick credentials are
above reproach, he's not exactly a chameleon. His performance could
best be described as an impression of Peter Sellers' in the original Pink
Panther flicks, but it's not a very good one. The garbled French
accent he adopts doesn't particularly recall Sellers or France. His
saving grace the last time out was that he was actually able to imbue this
buffoon with some actual pathos, and he had real chemistry with co-star
Jean Reno. This time, all traces of relatability are gone from Clouseau,
while a largely indifferent Reno is exiled to a running time-killing subplot
about he and his kids becoming his partners' roommates. Affecting
her own bizarre not-quite-quasi-French thing, Mortimer's Nicole (no last
name, even when characters have to awkwardly skip it) is perhaps the most
asexual love interest of the last quarter century.
The guest stars fare better
than the regulars, but only the charming scene-stealer Rai Bachchan has
really come to play. Garcia, who can be a really funny guy, is limited
by another of the movie's “funny” accents. Molina gets one cute scene
matching deductive wits with Clouseau, then is mostly on hand to delivery
exposition. Irons' role briefly injects some oddly out-of-left-field
dramatic gravitas into the proceedings, while neither Cleese nor Lily Tomlin
(in a few painful scenes trying to teach Old School Clouseau about political
correctness) is particularly on their game.
The plot, such as it is,
mostly drags its' ungainly Dream Team (stop taking those shots, I tell
you!) from location to location so they can “investigate”, Vicenzo can
hit on Nicole and Clouseau can trip over something. It's not a mystery
one can actually follow or solve, although the action climax does have
a bit of a pulse. Director Harald Zwart (Agent Cody Banks,
although I'd be remiss not to mention that his most recent pre-Panther
credit was called Long Flat Balls II) tends to be called upon for
this sort of middling fare, but usually injects it with more life.
The Pink Panther 2
recalls the bloated comedies of the 60's and 70's with its' belief that
lots of familiar faces and drably-shot International locations are a recipe
for hilarity. There's lots of running and screaming (granted, no
pie fights), but other than two or three well-executed pratfalls, the movie
mostly just lies there, as if to say “You paid you money, and we didn't
really want to do The Pink Panther 3 anyway.” |
