Film

Considering that it’s the follow-up to a remake of a movie whose franchise released three sequels after its star had died, The Pink Panther 2 is relatively light on its feet; this second go-round for Steve Martin’s Inspector Clouseau even marginally improves on the comedian’s cash-in from 2006. Someone has put thought into the symmetry of the plot, and gags involving a wobbly wine rack and surveillance cameras qualify as reasonably amusing. A few transitions are worthy of the Zucker brothers, and the supporting players—Lily Tomlin as a sensitivity trainer, John Cleese risking concussion as Inspector Dreyfus—deserve back-pats for good sportsmanship.

None of this is to imply that the movie is inspired, but for a series that’s left so much Clouseau-like wreckage in its wake, disposability may be worth settling for. To the extent that Pink Panther movies have ever worked, it was through the peculiar alchemy of Peter Sellers’s lack of self-consciousness and Blake Edwards’s mise en scène. The Pink Panther 2, by contrast, features Martin straining his facial muscles and looks like it was printed on parchment. But it wasn’t shot in the dark, and that counts for something.