The Pink Panther Review by Clint Morris
Being a stepmother to someone else’s
children is an interesting state of affairs. There’s no way
you’re ever going to love anything quite as much as the real
thing, but at the end of the day, you’ll try, and you will
experience a full range of emotions – not just love, but
resentment, melancholy and bewilderment – towards them. Apply the analogy to the redo of the classic Pink Panther,
with Blake Edwards' original as your biological bub and Shawn
Levy’s retread as the stepchild, and you’ll get an
indication of what to expect here. To be fair, the filmmakers
were never going to sway audiences over with a remake of the classic
comedy caper, because in essence, as a film, it was more untouchable
than Al Capone. Mainly, regardless how good the chap that inherited
Peter Sellers' trademark French moustache would be – and Steve
Martin is pretty good – he was never going to quite measure up,
was he? Best thing to do then? Think of this one as the first in the
series – a totally disattached film that simply carries the same
title as a movie you adore. It helps, believe me, and you might
actually find yourself with an arched maw. Famous soccer coach Yves Gluant (Jason The Transporter
Statham in an unbilled cameo, there’s another chap who makes a
cameo later on too – which is even funnier) is killed on the
field with a poison dart. Since the players were surrounding him at the
time, nobody saw where the shot was fired. French Chief Inspector
Dreyfus (Kevin Kline, no doubt wishing he’d been asked to play
Clouseau) decides to hire the bumbling egomaniac, Inspector Clouseau
(Steve Martin) to solve the crime. In between destroying hotels,
naively harming the onlooker, being arrested in airports, and
essentially just being plain unmindful – he eventually does just
yet. OK, so it’s not quite as funny as the originals
– we keep coming back to that, don’t we? – and it
seems to have more in common with the better Leslie Nielsen comedies,
like The Naked Gun series, than the Edwards’
franchise, but for what it’s worth, this is as good as it was
ever going to get, and believe me – with names like Chris Tucker
and Mike Myers once linked to the project – it could have been a
lot, lot worse. What’s also good is that the studio hasn’t
outed all the best bits in the trailer, so you’ll discover a
couple of very unexpected belly laughs, especially one moment where our
bumbling French copper attempts to learn English. You’ll never be
order a Hamburger without thinking of the moment again. A fun and
animated return to film for one of cinema’s favourite characters,
and a treat for the generation that have never seen him before, the
new The Pink Panther is a satisfying comedy – just
don’t watch the originals before you pop along to the remake,
like moss on a tasty multigrain roll, it’ll only spoil it. 3 out of 5
The Pink Panther
Australian release: 9th March, 2006.
Cast: Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Beyonce Knowles, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer
Director: Shawn Levy
Website:
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here.
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