When I first heard that Steve Martin was taking over Peter Sellers’ iconic role as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther (2006), I couldn’t believe it. Now, I don’t automatically discount the notion of remakes. After all, artists in the fields of theater and music frequently interpret other people’s works, and if it weren’t for remakes, the world of cinema would not have classics such as John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon or Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz. Yet, there are some stories and performances so ingrained into pop culture that new enterprises seemed doomed to failure.
I skipped Martin’s first foray, having no interest in the idea and no longer trusting him as a film comedian. I heard nothing good about it, so I was even more surprised to hear there was a sequel, The Pink Panther 2, which I ignored in theaters for the same reasons. I decided to review the Blu-ray set, expecting to savage the film, for purely selfish reasons since it came with an extra disc filled with Pink Panther cartoons. To my delight and surprise, I enjoyed it and was reminded to try something before automatically condemning it.
The story tells the tale of the cat burglar known as the Tornado, who has stolen treasures from countries around the world. An international team of detectives (Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, and Yuki Matsuzaki) is formed with France’s representative being Clouseau to the great chagrin of his superior, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John Cleese taking over for Kevin Kline). Sonia Solandres (Aishwarya Rai), a writer about the Tornado’s exploits, also joins the team. Clouseau bumbles along, leaving a good wake of destruction and damage, yet solves the mystery in an admittedly convoluted manner.
Although definitely geared towards a young audience, The Pink Panther 2 is surprisingly funny with all its silliness, from exaggerated accents to elaborate slapstick. There’s a wonderful and possibly complicated bit involving the juggling of wine bottles I hope was real and not CGI augmented. As a fan of the Sellers films, I was glad to see a sequence that paid homage to the Clouseau/Kato fights.
The film is a throwback to early Hollywood comedies and is good for the whole family, except maybe teenagers who are too cool for anything. My 15-year-old niece Sobrino Mono, who had already seen the film gave me a one-word review, "retarded," and had no interest in seeing it again. Ten-year-old nephew, Sobrino Poco Loco, found the film funny and thought it had a good story, particularly because he was able to solve the crime, which shows the film got him thinking.
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