For the most part, The Pink Panther isn't funny. Which is a desperate shame, because that's absolutely all director Shawn Levy seems to have aspired to; never mind Kevin Kline using two very different accents, forget about the half-baked plot, think not of the lack of chemistry between actors. As long as the film is funny, Levy might have figured, the punters won't care about the little things. And he's right. Comedies don't have to aspire to much to be brilliant. They just have to be funny.
But when you have a silly plot, dodgy accents and actors who look like they'd rather not be there, you better hope to the gods of comedy that you've got some laughs somewhere in the celluloid. A drama can get past a poor plot with a fine script or some brilliant performances. A horror movie can usually get by with a spooky soundtrack and some clever editing. But if a comedy doesn't click, you've got nothin'. A comedy exists to make people laugh, and so it's easy to forgive some big faults when you're in the throes of a serious belly laugh.
Indeed, when The Pink Panther is funny, it's easy to forget about the things so clearly wrong with the film. When a cyclist is hit in the head, through the incompentence of Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau, the cyclist falls from his bike on to a fruit stand, and the fruit stand inexplicably explodes. It's the highlight of the film: a genuine act of surreal comedy, the kind of serious weirdness chronically lacking in a film that can't seem to grasp that audiences are far too smart for generic slapstick.
In the opening scenes of the film, an old woman is accidentally hit in the face and an old man in an electric wheelchair zooms backwards and stacks it over a railing, his terrified screams far more disconcerting than funny. Both incidents are the result of Clouseau's idiocy, of course. Kevin Kline speaks over the footage in a dubious French accent he inexplicably abandons ten minutes into the film, falling into a pompous English accent he has no problem with.
The plot involves a dead soccer coach (a non-speaking role for the typically charismatic Jason Statham), a Russian ex-military trainer, a ludicrously hot and stunningly boring pop singer (Beyoncé Knowles), a secret agent (played by the atypically unsure Clive Owen) and a big diamond. But then, the plot doesn't matter. It's Clouseau we're here to see. He's the source of the hijinks. He's the one we're going on the ride with. In the 1963 original, Peter Sellers' Clouseau wasn't just the main character; he was the film.
Steve Martin isn't quite up to the Peter Sellers standard, but he does have an admirable crack at making the character his own. Martin has a funny accent, a silly moustache and some occasionally funny scenes involving the punching of unsuspecting curtains. But his assistant Ponton (Jean Reno) and his secretary (Emily Mortimer) steal the show, the only real characters in a film jam-packed with uninspiring caricatures. Reno brings a frustrated, concern gravity to a film that desperately needs it to counteract Martin's silliness.
Alas, not even a top-notch cast and inexplicably exploding fruit stands can save The Pink Panther. It's just not very funny.
The Pink Panther is released March 9th.
But when you have a silly plot, dodgy accents and actors who look like they'd rather not be there, you better hope to the gods of comedy that you've got some laughs somewhere in the celluloid. A drama can get past a poor plot with a fine script or some brilliant performances. A horror movie can usually get by with a spooky soundtrack and some clever editing. But if a comedy doesn't click, you've got nothin'. A comedy exists to make people laugh, and so it's easy to forgive some big faults when you're in the throes of a serious belly laugh.
Indeed, when The Pink Panther is funny, it's easy to forget about the things so clearly wrong with the film. When a cyclist is hit in the head, through the incompentence of Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau, the cyclist falls from his bike on to a fruit stand, and the fruit stand inexplicably explodes. It's the highlight of the film: a genuine act of surreal comedy, the kind of serious weirdness chronically lacking in a film that can't seem to grasp that audiences are far too smart for generic slapstick.
In the opening scenes of the film, an old woman is accidentally hit in the face and an old man in an electric wheelchair zooms backwards and stacks it over a railing, his terrified screams far more disconcerting than funny. Both incidents are the result of Clouseau's idiocy, of course. Kevin Kline speaks over the footage in a dubious French accent he inexplicably abandons ten minutes into the film, falling into a pompous English accent he has no problem with.
The plot involves a dead soccer coach (a non-speaking role for the typically charismatic Jason Statham), a Russian ex-military trainer, a ludicrously hot and stunningly boring pop singer (Beyoncé Knowles), a secret agent (played by the atypically unsure Clive Owen) and a big diamond. But then, the plot doesn't matter. It's Clouseau we're here to see. He's the source of the hijinks. He's the one we're going on the ride with. In the 1963 original, Peter Sellers' Clouseau wasn't just the main character; he was the film.
Steve Martin isn't quite up to the Peter Sellers standard, but he does have an admirable crack at making the character his own. Martin has a funny accent, a silly moustache and some occasionally funny scenes involving the punching of unsuspecting curtains. But his assistant Ponton (Jean Reno) and his secretary (Emily Mortimer) steal the show, the only real characters in a film jam-packed with uninspiring caricatures. Reno brings a frustrated, concern gravity to a film that desperately needs it to counteract Martin's silliness.
Alas, not even a top-notch cast and inexplicably exploding fruit stands can save The Pink Panther. It's just not very funny.
The Pink Panther is released March 9th.
(Originally published at Rouser).
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