The Pink Panther 2

People who have the time to care may discover that I didn't entirely hate the new version of the Pink Panther, even in spite of it having the obvious pitfalls that I suspected it would have, and so I toddled off to see The Pink Panther 2 with my expectations a little higher than they were for the first film. Incidentally, I think it's pretty clear that the days of unique titles for sequels have passed - now we just stick a number after the original title, or attempt to do something clever like put a number into the original title. With Fast & Furious it looks like they can't even bothered to change the original title...people will still go see it no matter what.

The big difference between the new series of Pink Panther films and the original series is the target audience. Blake Edward's films may have been slapstick, but the target audience was clearly an adult audience (witness the amount of boobage in A Shot In The Dark if you don't believe me). Steve Martin's films are a family event, and the first film succeeded by catering to that audience. That said, it's strangely where the second film tends to go awry. For some reason, while most people know they are making a family film, some of the screenwriters (possibly Martin himself) has forgotten this, and there are a few jokes in the film which sit uncomfortably with the rest of the film - most notably the jokes about being politically correct. Now, while I laughed out loud at these jokes, and particularly enjoyed the "my little yellow friend" reference to the original films, the joke about oggling the beautiful girl - funny though it was - seemed just crass given the level of the film. I had a similar feeling when, in "The Cat In The Hat", the cat almost swore.

The other thing that is infinitely annoying about this film is the complete lack of continuity with the first film in regards to the Pink Panther. In the first film, it was the largest diamond in the world, but was in a ring on a football coach's hand. Now, it is the symbol of France and is far, far too big to be in a ring. This sort of carelessness is, quite frankly, just annoying and it's here where the screenwriters and producers need to go back to the original films to take some lessons: don't contradict yourself...you don't have to have the Pink Panther in the film to call it a Pink Panther film. All it needs is Clouseau.

Steve Martin makes less of an impact as Clouseau this time round, and sadly, once again saves the day by being a very intelligent detective rather than than just extraordinarily lucky. Fortunately, while Martin is going overboard with his physical comedy and just looking stupid, there are others to take on some of the comedy - in this case Alfred Molina and, surprisingly, Andy Garcia. Molina has some clever lines, but Garcia comes dangerously close to stealing the movie with amazing precision on his lines and, more than that, giving some equally clever slapstick comedy. I would actually love to watch more of Garcia's character rather than Martin's.

I see that the box office returns for this film are particularly bad and so, as a consequence, I doubt we will see a Pink Panther 3. At the end of the day this is probably a good thing. There is a place for this kind of film, but it's quite far removed from the original Pink Panther concept and as a result really isn't a Pink Panther film.