| Review:
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With a winking nod to the Peter Sellers mythic original,
as well as his own 2006 neo-vintage heavily accented buffoonery
for The Pink Panther 2, Steve Martin's Inspector Jacques
Clouseau is up against, not just a shrewd network of unstoppable
global precious gem thieves, but the far less dainty current
comedic reign of the grossouts on the big and small screen.
And with its inventive wit perhaps better suited to more
sophisticated post-adolescent palates, Martin's brand of
Chaplinesque physical humor, however uniquely clumsy, may
come off as just a tad too polite for the youth audience.***
When an assortment of famed artifacts like the Magna
Carta and the Shroud of Tourin are swiped from their respective
burglar proof glass displays, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John
Cleese) reluctantly calls in the way too eager, supremely
bungling French investigator Clouseau to join the crew on
the case. Which includes a mixed nuts 'Dream Team' of engaging
international nitwits played by Jean Reno, Andy Garcia and
Alfred Molina, in pursuit of a mystery villain prone to
leaving behind his triumphant calling card, The Tornado,
at every scene of the crime. And elegantly deflecting mounting
suspicions, is a crafty playboy sports nut (Jeremy Irons)
with possible upscale menace on his mind.***
But the giddily politically incorrect Clouseau is first
ordered to enroll in a remedial crash course in minimally
acceptable etiquette towards women and foreigners. And with
Lily Tomlin as his increasingly exasperated personal trainer
in the art of losing bad manners, these interludes steal
the show as the funniest in this otherwise primarily conventional
cat and mouse crime caper.***
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Final Words:
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Martin's all purpose good cop/bad
cop excels mostly at flaunting his down time dark side, when
engaged in beating up children, burning down ritzy restaurants
more than once, and ogling every woman in the vicinity. But
Norwegian director Harald Zwart's reconceived silly beyond
belief homage to Pink Panther creator Blake Edwards and his
mischievous iconic master sleuth Peter Sellers, while navigating
its way through a maze of woefully mismatched individually
assigned accents, has a much too old fashioned flavor lost
somewhere in translation, and in time. |
