In my review of 2006's Pink Panther, I referred to it as a disaster, and went on to say "...literally every gag from frame one falls flat on its face, coughs, wheezes, and lies there dying". And that was just the introduction! I later went on to call it the worst film of the year so far, a title it would hold for only a couple weeks when Madea's Family Reunion (a movie that did ultimately win my vote for the Worst Movie of 2006) came along. Truth be told, I remember very little about the movie three years later. Considering how angry it apparently made me from reading my review/rant, that's probably for the best.

The Pink Panther 2 created no such feelings of hatred. This is a better movie, in that it is merely mediocre with a few scattered laughs instead of being unwatchable. Maybe it's the new director, Harald Zwart (filling in for Shawn Levy), who seems to get a little more energy out of his cast. Maybe it was the new writers at the screenplay level, who throw in some silly but clever moments of dialogue that caught me off guard. A big part, though, has to do with some recasting. In the last film, Kevin Kline played the suffering Chief Inspector Dreyfus. Kline is a fine comedic actor, but he did not seem right or very comfortable in the role. This time, John Cleese plays the character, and he's a much better fit. Cleese is the master of slow burn humor. Just seeing him trying to act proper and controlled, while resisting his urges to strangle Inspector Clouseau (Steve Martin), are enough to make me smile. He understands the character and the material better than Kline did, and he's a welcome addition to the cast.

As mentioned, Martin returns as the bungling Clouseau, and once again something about his performance seems off. He's obviously a great comic, but he's not right to fill the shoes of the character created by Peter Sellers in the original films. He plays Clouseau almost like a man-child, who just happens to have amazing powers of deduction. Equally distracting are the numerous times we can tell we're watching a stand-in for Martin during the many stunts and pratfalls he's forced to perform. Instead of concentrating on the slapstick gag, we're focusing on when we're looking at Martin and when we're looking at a stunt double in a white wig. It's obvious he's more comfortable in the scenes where he has to rely on dialogue-based humor, such as the scenes where Clouseau must attend some private lessons to learn politically correct behavior from a woman named Mrs. Berenger (Lily Tomlin). There's some great word play (and some surprisingly funny off-color humor) between the two actors, and you can tell that he is in his environment here. I sensed a lot of improvisation during these scenes, and this is one of the few times I wouldn't mind seeing alternate takes on the scene, since I'm sure there were plenty of jokes between the two actors that wound up on the cutting room floor.

These moments made me laugh, but there is a lot of dead space where not much of interest happens. Unfortunately, a lot of this dead space has to do with the plot, which concerns Clouseau being assigned to be part of a "Dream Team" of detectives. A famous criminal known as The Tornado has come out of retirement, and is starting to steal priceless artifacts from all over the world, including the famous Pink Panther diamond. The detectives hail from different parts of the globe, and include Vicenzo (Andy Garcia) from Italy, Pepperidge (Alfred Molina) from England, Kenji (Yuki Matsuzaki) from Japan, and Sonia (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) from India. Unfortunately, aside from a hinted love triangle between Clouseau, Vicenzo, and Clouseau's girlfriend from the last movie, Nicole (Emily Mortimer), very little is done with these new cast members. Mainly, they're required to stand in the background, only popping up to remind us they're in the movie also. Molina's character gets a funny introductory scene, where he matches his power of deduction with Clouseau's, but then nothing is done with him. He spends the rest of the movie telling the cast "if Clouseau winds up solving this case, I'll wear a pink tutu". I hate to give away the end, but you can probably guess what he's wearing in the film's final scene.

Once the promising characters and the plot are introduced, The Pink Panther 2 pretty much goes on auto pilot. The slapstick gags are predictable, and many don't even have a pay off. There's a scene where Clouseau is dressed as the Pope, and falls from the balcony in front of a crowd. The movie can't think of anything else to do but to have him fall, and have the audience scream. A better screenplay would have built upon it, or maybe have Clouseau try to make the best out of a bad situation, only to make it worse. While this is a better movie than the last one, it still seems far too uncertain of itself. A comedy like this needs to go for broke, not go for the timid or easy gag. Some of the jokes are also allowed to go on too long, such as when Clouseau has to pose as a Spanish dancer at a restaurant to spy on a suspect. The gag never goes anywhere to begin with, and seems padded. By the way, said suspect is played by Jeremy Irons, of all people. I initially asked what he was doing in this movie, but a better question would be why didn't the movie use him for more than just a forgettable 10 minute cameo?

It would be a crime to close this review and not talk about the title, which I find somewhat insulting to the fans of the original films. With a title like The Pink Panther 2, it seems to suggest that the studio wants to forget that the classic films even existed, and that the 2006 movie was the first. Not only is this an insult to the fans, it also goes against the work that Sellers and filmmaker Blake Edwards gave us. The original films all had unique titles (Revenge of the Pink Panther, Curse of the Pink Panther, etc.), I have no idea why the tradition had to be broken here.

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