Review of The Pink Panther (2006) by Harry W — 28 Jul 2014

A fan of Steve Martin, I figured out it wouldn't hurt to see him in his own version of The Pink Panther.

The Pink Panther entirely revolves around Steve Martin's role in the production of the film.

Steve Martin seems pretty miscast in The Pink Panther. I've never seen any of the original Pink Panther films and therefore do not know what Peter Sellers was like in the role, but it is clear that The Pink Panther is less of a film based on the original series and more of a medium for his own form of comedy under the guise of being a remake of a popular comedy series. I'm sure the original was far superior than this because there is little in The Pink Panther that is actually clever while more of it is just a crude and self indulgent comedy. Steve Martin took the role of writer and star in The Pink Panther, and while his performance has him putting a lot of energy into the film and working with the gags of the script without flinching, the material is just not good. The Pink Panther is nothing more than a star vehicle for Steve Martin and not a good one because it bares the name of a comedy classic, and remakes are rarely good. This one takes the idea in an all new direction, and it is a strictly Steve Martin direction. The only thing is that the shtick is getting stale by this point and so The Pink Panther is not as funny as it could have been decades ago. The comedy is old and the entire gag feels really tired, and combine that with the fact that it is stretched out over the course of a 93 minute long and excessively commercial film makes it a challenging one to enjoy. Steve Martin does his best in the part and so the most die hard fans of his style of comedy may find some level of appreciation for him, and admittedly there were a few points where I came close to laughing. But in all honesty, I never did. I may have smiled or looked at the gags and thought "that's funny", but laughing was an entirely different idea. The Pink Panther is a comedy but it did not make me laugh, nor did it make me any more favourable in my opinion of Steve Martin. I mean I like the guy and find him funny in the right film, but this is clearly not the right film and it suggests that he is getting old and that perhaps it is time to stop reaching further than he can grasp. That is what The Pink Panther is an example of, an excess of ambition which cannot be tied up by a cluttered script or by Shawn Levy's direction who assists in turning the film into nothing but a long and repetitive tale of lame slapstick gags which are high in quantity but low in quality. It is a prime example of big budget overkill, and it spends too much time trying to make jokes instead of actually thinking how they could be put in to be clever. Whatever made the original Pink Panther film great is not present in the remake, so it is another unnecessary Hollywood act of turning a classic into a cheap star vehicle for a new audience.

The scenery of the film is nice though. Admittedly, thanks to some good settings for the film everything has a lot of colour in it, and it helps slightly to reinforce the story that the film is telling even if the rest of the concept is not expressed as excellently. It is also captured with some nice cinematography and edited at an energetic pace. The pace is one of the better aspects of The Pink Panther because everything moves quickly instead of waiting around for things to develop, and so people who take a more positive look at Steve Martin's efforts in the film are more likely to enjoy it. It isn't likely that too many people will find it a refreshing comedy, but it should do the job for its fans.

The cast of the film are not really that impressive though, so what little success the film can reach is already limited.

Beyonce Knowles' presence is a prime example of how overly commercial this film is. She really brings nothing to the role and her relationship with Steve Martin's character Inspector Jacques Clouseau is really not that compelling, so her presence in the film seems solely dependent on getting fans to come and see her while her performance is really lacklustre in effort and success. Beyocne Knowles simply comes off as being a symbol about how precisely commercial this film is because her presence is more about who she is than what she can do for the film considering that she does essentially nothing for it.

Kevin Kline is the only actor who is really centrally good in The Pink Panther. It is good to see Kevin Kline back up and acting again. Although the man deserved a more clever role than the one he was given for The Pink Panther. His presence is genial because he delivers his line with a humour level of egotism in him and he brings the right level of sophistication to the part, so he manages to give a performance which brought me closer to laughing than any others in the film. Although The Pink Panther is an unnecessary film, it is good as a chance to bring Kevin Kline back into the spotlight for a while.

Jean Reno is ok as well I guess. Although it seems like the film uses his name more than his acting talents simply as he is a widely recognised French actor in mainstream cinema, he manages to do his part well enough and interacts with Steve Martin fairly organically.

So The Pink Panther's success is all dependent on what the audiences' opinion of Steve Martin is. His strongest fans may rejoice at seeing him go over the top with so many slapstick gags in this film, while others will see it as a boring, repetitive, unfunny and pointless remake of a comedy classic.