Pink Panther 2006

May 18th, 2006 by sameer | Posted in General |

French Accent: Overdone
Plot: Interestingly knit, but too abrupt
Continuity: Bad
Humor Devices: Isolated from each other, as if the funny scenes were thought of first and a story was wrapped around it
Trademark Dialogues: Very few, none extremely great

Final Conclusion: Fails miserably compared to the Original series, including “Son of Pink Panther”. Steve Martin (One of my favorite actors) fails miserably as Closseau. I think I will watch the old series one more time

Numerical Rating: 3/10

The people I saw the movie with seem to have liked it a lot. So I just searched for reviews of this movie on Yahoo!/MSN (I try not to use Google anymore) and saw the great divide - People who do not like the movie are fans of the original Pink Panther series. People who liked the movie are probably seeing Closseau for the first time.

All critics have rated the movie very badly while regular viewers have rated it average & slightly above average.
I found one piece of text that almost sums up why I was disgusted by the movie:

This is a prequel to the original The Pink Panther that updates the bumbling inspector to the era of cell phones, the Internet, and Viagra. In the first few minutes, there’s a hit on the head, an electric shock, and a goat stampede. As we filed out of the theater during the credits, some wise guy made hand shadows on the screen and they were more entertaining than anything we’d seen there all evening. This is less like Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards and more like “Ernest Goes to Paris.”

Here is what is not funny: Steve Martin pursing his lips. Steve Martin mangling a French accent (hint: this idea works better when the story does not take place in France, where everyone is supposed to be speaking French, and when the “funny” accent is almost indistinguishable from the not-funny accents of other non-French people pretending to be French by speaking through their noses). It is especially not funny when an accent specialist tries to teach Clouseau how to ask for a hamburger, because what begins as not funny is then repeated, becoming not-funnier every time. It is not funny that it appears that two characters are having sex or that two men have to share a bed. And even the slapstick is mostly not funny because it is staged so poorly. The movie wastes the considerable talents of Beyonce Knowles.

Here is what is not so bad: Steve Martin has a funny walk and a cute little car. I give him credit for going back to the original source of the title — the Pink Panther is a huge diamond. Emily Mortimer is adorable. There is a funny joke about camouflage. Jean Reno looks uncomfortable but he is gracious as ever and brings a little class to his corner of the film. And in a very brief cameo, Clive Owen shows us what we’re missing in not having him as the new James Bond. Like the original Henry Mancini theme song, his presence only reminds us of what we’d rather be watching.

And please don’t miss reading this wonderful review here