Review: The Pink Panther 2 (1/5)

The Pink Panther 2
(Harald Zwart):
Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, John Cleese, Jeremy Irons, Lily Tomlin
Running time: 92 minutes (PG)


Peter Sellers must be spitting worms. Just as civilization was recovering from Steve Martin’s 2006 Pink Panther remake, along comes The Pink Panther 2, a movie so woeful you wonder if mankind would just be the better for annihilation.
Most of this jewel-heist story is set in Paris. We know this because the film gives us an establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower every three minutes. What we really need is an establishing shot that reminds us we’re supposed to be watching an Inspector Clouseau comedy. Steve Martin is ill-equipped: imagine a quadriplegic monkey on a unicycle. He slimes through the feeble jokes. He can’t do slapstick. (He has to rely on the editor who cuts the jokes physically into shape.) And he has to rely on a body double for larger stunts. Remember Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther or A Shot in the Dark? He used just the personal space around him to create all-consuming anarchy. The director Blake Morrison didn’t have to do a thing but put the camera in front of him. The plot here is not worth speaking of because the movie can’t be bothered with it. After 45 minutes nothing has happened. This is because there are so many star appearances, the film detours to give each one of them a scene. I’ve lost all respect for Lily Tomlin. I never want to see Jeremy Irons or Alfred Molina again. As for Steve Martin, he hasn’t a Clouseau.