REVIEW: ‘Panther 2' another insult to original

If there's ever been an actor living off expired fame, it's Steve Martin. It's been more than a decade - possibly closer to two - since Martin headlined a truly amusing film.

Yet he continues to be revered as one of this country's greatest physical comedians, residual affection for such movies as "The Jerk," "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Father of the Bride." However, there's only so long that Martin can continue starring in films like "The Pink Panther 2" - which activate your gag reflex rather than tickle your funny bone - before we all give up on him forever.

"Pink Panther's" paper-thin plot concerns the theft of priceless treasures from across the world by a mysterious thief calling himself The Tornado. An "international dream team" of detectives consisting of Vicenzo (Andy Garcia), Pepperidge (Alfred Molina), Kenji (Yuki Matsuzaki) and, of course, Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Martin) is hastily assembled.

The team crisscrosses Europe following the leads. At each stop, the brilliant investigators become ever more exasperated by Clouseau's gauche ineptness and caricatured clumsiness; each crime scene is merely another opportunity for Clouseau to make a fool out of himself and them.

"Pink Panther 2," a second insult to the original Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers films, is spectacularly unfunny, a lethargic, derivative and painfully obvious farce cursed with an aimless, almost nonexistent sense of comedic timing.

The film's utter lack of visual style and general drabness contributes to an overall aimlessness that devours any talent set before the camera. Pratfalls and physical gags take you only so far. For every amusing moment in which a restaurant is burned to the ground or two inspectors match wits Sherlock Holmes style, there is an inexplicably bizarre song-and-dance scene involving beauty products or the fumbling mispronunciation of the word "hamburger."

When was the last time a cast this good was wasted in a movie this bad? Why seasoned pros like Molina, John Cleese, Lily Tomlin, Emily Mortimer and Jeremy Irons ever signed on is baffling. Generally, exceptional casts make anything worth watching. But "The Pink Panther 2" is the exception that proves the rule. There's no reason the late middle-aged Martin can't reinvent himself. Bill Murray did it splendidly.

There were shades of such a transformation in "Shop Girl," based on a novel which Martin wrote, but it seems that pleasing little film was a one-time-only deal. Martin, who is also an art collector, musician, accomplished playwright, novelist and one-time aspiring philosophy professor, is smarter than this. And so are we.

I wish someone would steal this movie.

THE PINK PANTHER 2

Cast: Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, Aishwarya Rai
Director: Harald Zwart
Theaters: Hollywood, Carmike, Tinseltown, Chapel Hills, Cinemark
Rating: PG (for some suggestive humor, brief mild language and action)
Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes.

GRADE: D