Let us assume it is the new millennium, and for whatever reason you’ve decided to profligate the Pink Panther series. Let us not probe why, or if it is a good idea; let us simply ponder how. Thrice we’ve seen that Pink Panther movies simply do not work without Peter Sellers starring (we even have an example against grave robbing, in case you were wondering). Furthermore, Blake Edwards’ continuity was all violently massaged with unheeded sequels, and would be a remarkably difficult thing to build upon.
Lucky for us you’re living in the reboot-, remake-happy ‘00s, when you can announce continuity abandonment, go ahead with recasting, and no one presses the logic of it. So the 2006 Pink Panther arrives in the guise of a remake, though it surely isn’t a remake of The Pink Panther itself – but that’s the title audiences will respond to. Rather, it is a franchise remake, in that this Pink Panther is “based on the Pink Panther films of Blake Edwards” writ large. It adapts the form of The Pink Panther, not the specifics of any one entry. Let us further hope for your project that an 84-year-old Edwards is too senile to take offence to what’s going on.
In comes Steve Martin, both writing and also starring as Inspector Clouseau. Kevin Kline is Charles Dreyfus. Anyone else feel like they ought to switch roles? I mean, Edwards did briefly consider Kline for Clouseau immediately around A Fish Called Wanda, which would’ve made him the third Oscar winner in the role.
Start again. In comes Steve Martin, on paper a promising Panther prospect given his healthy comedy career – Grammy-winning comedy albums, then The Jerk, All of Me, Little Shop of Horrors, Planes, Trains & Automobiles. What do you notice about all those things? Yeah, they date from the ‘80s, or even earlier! Like so many similarly talented comic minds ([cough!] Eddie Murphy [cough!]), Martin lost his controversial, absurdist edge around the time he took on a family. That is the lamentable neutered tradition The Pink Panther ’06 version finds itself in, aiming more decidedly for the family market than any Panther prior – hence some of the smuttier material had to be excised, banished to the DVD deleted scenes (so no Trail for this Panther).
No matter, Martin is still a sharp enough tool to understand his Clouseau cannot be exactly like Sellers’, that he must walk a fine line trading off memory of the old films whilst forging new material out of old conceits. In its way, this is the best thing to happen to the franchise since 1980, for with Edwards gone, a fresh voice can treat the material with vigor and verve. And for as stupid as The Pink Panther turns out, it’s at least intellectually stimulating (is that right?) to see effort put into these jokes again. It still isn’t especially funny, somehow, for complex reasons of tone and delivery I shan’t delve into for lack of competency, but it’s more than the last three entries combined.
While Clouseau remains a bumbling French inspector, there are differences taken advantage of. He now hails from a small village, where he enjoys a history of grotesque idiocy. Promoted (by Dreyfus, for reasons we’ll get to) to the Sûreté, Clouseau develops, well, quite the ego. While Martin understands the central lesson of the old films, that Clouseau does not act the fool even though he is the fool, Martin rather overemphasizes that trait. His Clouseau gloats in a much haughtier (and dare I say, French) manner than Sellers’ version ever did. Consider Clouseau’s rejection of American cuisine, which in a post-9/11 flick feels as though it should be a satire. It is not, due to this film’s family friendly spinelessness, instead rendering France a land of silly frogs for the kiddies to bray at. Ah, America.
Clouseau’s physical incompetency remains (it’s the one trait they remembered keeping in the later Edwards efforts), though it no longer concerns simply Clouseau and Dreyfus. Now the main victim is…the general public itself. Yeah, Clouseau the cop misunderstands public safety so egregiously, he causes what could arguably be construed as deaths (in the Final Destination mode) if we stuck around long enough to learn the outcome of injuries sustained by poor passersby. Clouseau remains as unaware as ever, but in a crueler way.
All of this makes Martin’s Clouseau a lot less likable than Sellers – and it’s Sellers’ likability which propelled Clouseau from costar to leading man in A Shot in the Dark. This doesn’t have to be a problem, as many a cynical comedy has been made of a jerkass hero. The problem is this Pink Panther wants it both ways. As a family film – nay, a big-budget, Hollywood family film complete with standard script formulae – The Pink Panther must provide Clouseau with an actual dramatic arc, giving us 80% of a movie filled with wild and crazy pratfalls, only to celebrate their perpetrator with a completely straight face.
Clouseau even gets that Third Act “lowest ebb” moment all hack writers simply prattle on and on about. Even though the humor is the best-constructed we’ve seen since Revenge of the Pink Panther, this makes the 2006 Pink Panther somehow feel the most generic of the pack.
Okay, let’s just credit that to artless director Shawn Levy, who shows as much skill in creating mass market success as he does flat and inoffensive mediocrities. Cheaper By the Dozen shows Levy humbling Martin even earlier; Ben Stiller didn’t need much help debasing himself for Night at the Museum, but it takes talent to make Steve Carrell and Tina Fey unfunny at once (Date Night).
With Clouseau given dramatic focus for once, the plot is possibly of greater consequence than is normal for this franchise – And a question: Do remakes count towards a franchise? I think so, but who’s to say.
The case today is one of murder [da dum dum!]. The victim is Yves Gluant (Jason Statham, Frenchman?!), coach of the French national soccer – excuse me, football – team. Presumably this happens at a World Cup game – maybe the 1998 World Cup that was held in France. It’s the semifinals, and France has just beaten China f- Never mind, their 1998 semifinal opponent was Croatia. Nah, this is just fiction! Anyway, Gluant gets a poison dart to his neck. And to justify the title – ‘cause it’s too soon in an ostensibly rebooted franchise to go about assuming “Pink Panther” means nothing – his Pink Panther diamond ring finger is missing. Gasp and awe!
Apart from the Panther’s existence, we learn nothing of it. Unlike Edwards’ inexplicable fixation with this rock, its 2006 usefulness is slight – seeing as most people are more concerned with the dead soccer hooligan. The diamond thing does at least justify a later subplot with Gruant’s girlfriend, Xania (Beyoncé Knowles, who has a habit of appearing in bad sequels about bumbling detectives). Xania is an American pop singer, which must’ve been a real stretch for Beyoncé and – Okay, enough sarcasm, let us simply respect the series for continuing to cast astoundingly beautiful women even if their parts are unimpressive. Er, their movie parts, that is.
Dreyfus wishes to solve the case, as it is his lifelong dream to win France’s Medal of Honor (or Médaille d’honneur). But “because of the media” he cannot just go and do that…apparently. Rather, Dreyfus seeks out the greatest imbecile in all of France – that’d be Clouseau – and assigns him to the case. Meanwhile, Dreyfus shall secretly investigate as – Okay, look, why not just take the case yourself? The media is never shown creating a problem for Clouseau’s investigation. Kline’s Dreyfus brought this upon himself, for doofy reasons, and his comeuppance (not even a single murder or eye twitch to his name this time) is thus his own fault.
No matter, Clouseau is on the case, with his assistant Cat- No, no, the Cato character is racist. Rather, in order to avoid cries of prejudice and to cast another white guy, Clousau’s partner in crime-solving is Gilbert Ponton (Jean Reno, because one doesn’t invoke France nowadays without Jean Reno). He’s here on Dreyfus’ orders, to curtail Clouseau’s idiocy as much – no, as little – as possible. As a bizarre reversal on the old Clouseau-Cato dynamic, here Clouseau announces he shall attack Ponton at irregular intervals, for Ponton’s benefit. It’s the same basic setup, but with even more foolishness heaped into Clouseau’s court. As running gags go, this one is mostly forgotten about – or it never registers as strongly, since their battles never last all that long.
Clouseau’s investigation mostly involves finding and interviewing an assortment of individuals connected to Gluant. Each interview is pretty much self-contained, a chance for isolated shenanigans. The movie’s success then depends upon the majority of these being amusing, which…which I suppose they are. There’s a little too much dependency upon the format of The Naked Gun. A recording booth affords a flatulence variation on that film’s classic urine-and-microphone gag. There’s also a scene where Clouseau interviews a businessman, destroys all his priceless antiques (comedy and valuables do not mix), even gets attacked by the aquarium fish. And a fountain pen gets destroyed at some point.
But at least this Pink Panther never burgles from that other famous post-Panther parody, Austin Powers (I mean, apart from borrowing Beyoncé). After the weird Bondian fixation of Son of the Pink Panther, it’s nice to see one such tale of ineptitude leave that British superspy alone.
Oh DAMN IT!
Hmm, it’s 2006, and Clive Owen has just lost his bid to replace Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Instead he makes an “in-joke” about it in The Pink Panther, as Nigel Boswell Agent 006. “You’re one short” – Oh I get it! See what you missed out on, Bond producers? Huh?!
…Actually, this Bond pastiche was put together with the dreaded Die Another Day the freshest memory. When The Pink Panther stands against the same year’s Casino Royale, all of its many, many Bondian touches (not limited to Owen) feel antiquated.
Ignoring points like this, of which I certainly make too big a deal, there are individual examples of comic cleverness on display – Pink Panther diamonds in the rough, as it were. Aiding Clouseau is his secretary Nicole (an improbably attractive Emily Mortimer), who brings out the bumblingiest bumbling Clouseau ever bumbled. These scenes progress, Clouseau winds up in physically…suggestive positions with Nicole, then someone else (often Ponton) wanders in to admire the predicament. This is where the PG-rating does them a disservice, as the gag could’ve reached much more inspired heights twere it a tad risqué.
The other point in this Panther’s favor is the way it handles the franchise-long joke about Clouseau’s improbable French accent. (The eternal question remains: “Is he speaking French or English?”) Clouseau intends to go to America, mostly to hit on Beyoncé (oh, right, his Clouseau is hornier than Sellers’ too). To prepare, he meets with the world’s greatest voice coach, in order to eliminate his accent.
Now, while Martin never commits to specific pronunciations Sellers favored, he identifies new words to mangle. The greatest of these is “hamburger,” which gets delivered as “dhammbuehrghuertte.” And about 12 other ways. This leads to a multi-minute back-and-forth, a decent example of an intentionally pointless comic detour. It’s the film’s best scene, and it may be found here. You be the judge. Is it funny, or desperate and childish?
Not all the comedy works that well – the scenes more in Levy’s control, and less in Martin’s, are more concerned with being technically adequate than with being funny. When Blake Edwards was working at his best, the entirely of his Panthers bragged clever jokes. Edwards was himself a comedian, simply one most comfortable behind the camera. Levy is a mercenary journeyman. His jokes as presented are legible, which is a start, and would be perfectly amusing to a youth (who isn’t familiar with the greater world of comedy yet). But it seems the only trick Levy knows, apart from getting out of Martin’s way, is to irregularly humiliate Jean Reno. He should’ve just played clips from the American Godzilla. Consider Levy’s attempts:
It’s time to consider the climax, then go enjoy the rest of my day. As The Naked Gun and its ilk are the unacknowledged inspiration here, we must end at the most pretentious event possible, namely the President’s Ball. As per the dramatic story for Clouseau, this means a few things. One, there is an identifiable villain other than the murderer, and that villain is Dreyfus – not unusual, but different. He hopes to end the murder case this night same as Clouseau does, but Dreyfus intends to arrest someone different. The wrong person, in fact, because this is the kind of movie this is.
Meaning Clouseau will be correct when he identifies the killer. The plot can’t just resolve itself as in the Edwards examples, Clouseau as bumbling as ever. No, Clouseau must look competent, he must earn his victory – so say the strictures of the formulaic screenplay. This undercuts the premise of the entire franchise, and does a lot to quell the free-spirited zaniness from before. So Clouseau gets honored in the way Dreyfus wished to be, not due to a cruel twist of fate, but because he deserves to. This is screwy.
In the end, it seems the remake gambit was the proper one to play, along with a rejuvenated cast and crew. The Pink Panther boasted a very healthy gross, nearly $200 million – the highest in the franchise, owing partly to inflation. With time gone by, it suffered not a whit from the poor reputation of Edwards’ post-Sellers Panthers. Not that most people could even be bothered to recall Son of the Pink Panther, but by 2006 the Sellers efforts were all that still stood. Martin does a good job of delivering the Clouseau character without ever just aping Sellers – even if I find some of his snobbishness aggravating. The spirit of the former films is retained and altered, befitting a change in times and tone. It’s not the comedy classic its greatest forbears are. Still, this Pink Panther did what no other Sellers-less entry could: It firmly established a lead who could continue the franchise.
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Pink Panther (1963)
• No. 2 A Shot in the Dark (1964)
• No. 3 Inspector Clouseau (1968)
• No. 4 The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)
• No. 5 The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
• No. 6 Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)
• No. 7 Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)
• No. 8 Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
• No. 9 Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
• No. 11 The Pink Panther (2009)
No comments:
Post a Comment