A Clawless 'Pink Panther'

Alas, Martin's Clouseau Is Clueless, Too

That there's a murder committed during "The Pink Panther 2" shouldn't be so surprising: It is, after all, a movie about the world's greatest detective -- the suave, debonair and hopelessly incompetent Inspector Jacques Clouseau. What's really shocking, though, is the brutality of the killing, and the utter innocence of the victim: comedy. What did comedy ever do to you, Steve Martin, except put a roof over your head? Mon Dieu.

Determined to do what he can to keep the memory of Peter Sellers as fresh as possible, Martin returns to the role of Clouseau with all the comedic passion of an IRS auditor. With his molting caterpillar mustache, he looks like Chaplin in "Monsieur Verdoux," and his performance will have a similar effect on a multiplex that a slammed oven door has on a souffle. Without dwelling too much on Sellers (although we'd like to), his original Clouseau was brilliant, definitive and, now and then, screamingly funny. But the performance was also an organic whole: Clouseau lived within a bubble of imbecility that could not be penetrated by logic, physics or the scorn of his betters (who were legion). Clouseau lived exclusively in Clouseau World, brushing off his injured dignity when necessary (which made him sympathetic), but remaining willfully blind to his own ineptitude (which absolved us of our laughter).

Martin? His inspector is a Clouseau du jour, a Clouseau who changes with each scene and set of circumstances; his silliness has no gravitas, his mincing faux French is the foie gras of fatuous inflection. He's as annoying as alliteration. He is not even very likable.

He is, of course, a baboon. But what kind of Clouseau would rub his Légion d'Honneur (awarded him during the last go-round) in the face of his superior officer, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John Cleese, replacing Kevin Kline)? Clouseau is supposed to be oblivious to Dreyfus, not bait him. But never mind: After trying to get rid of Clouseau for the umpteenth time, Dreyfus has to assign his problem child to an international "dream team" of investigators probing the disappearance of the world's greatest artifacts, including the fabled Pink Panther diamond (yes, that's where the title originally came from). The team includes Clouseau's partner, Ponton (a cleanshaven-hence-unrecognizable Jean Reno); Nicole (Emily Mortimer), who would like to be Clouseau's girlfriend; Inspector Vincenzo Brancaleone (Andy Garcia); Chief Inspector Randall Pepperidge (Alfred Molina); electronics expert Kenji Mazuto (Yuki Matsuzaki); and an Indian criminologist named Sonia (Bollywood beauty Aishwarya Rai). What they did to deserve Clouseau is anybody's guess.

As directed by the unheralded Norwegian Harald Zwart ("Agent Cody Banks"), "PP2" has two moments of absolute mirth: One involves Clouseau trying to pick a bottle of wine out of a restaurant rack, losing control of the bottles and involving every patron in the place in an elaborate juggling act. That it's all a computer trick is obvious, but unlike almost everything else in the movie, we haven't seen it before.

The other gem is a sequence in which the assembled "dream team" watches aghast via closed circuit as Clouseau stumbles around the estate of their chief suspect, Avellaneda (Jeremy Irons), unbeknown to Avellaneda. The scene possesses the kind of unhinged slapstick spirit that you suddenly notice is missing everywhere else in the film.

It's a formula problem. One can understand why Columbia Pictures and MGM would make this thing: "The Pink Panther" is a known quantity; it has name recognition, as does Steve Martin, who people seem to think is still funny. Frankly, he seems exhausted. But there are other flies in the ointment.

The inherent hilarity of being French certainly isn't what it was in 1963 (the year of the first "Panther" comedy), and the puncturing of propriety by Clouseau packs a pretty weak punch, given there is no propriety. And Martin's heart doesn't seem to be in it. He wants to write New Yorker stories and novellas that get turned into movies like "Shopgirl." What can we say? Bonne chance, mon ami.

The Pink Panther 2 (92 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG-13 for adult humor, vulgarity.