The Pink Panther (2006)

I was always a fan of The Pink Panther cartoon that sometimes aired on the Cartoon Network and I was well aware of the Peter Sellers version of The Pink Panther, but I've never viewed a full film. So for today while I was cruising Youtube, I figured I would watch the 2006 remake of The Pink Panther that was directed by Shawn Levy (Night At The Museum). The film stars Steve Martin (Cheaper By The Dozen) as the world famous Inspector Clouseau who gets hired to solve a case that involves the French National team coach (Jason Statham) getting killed and the Pink Panther diamond is stolen from him. Clouseau will have to do his best because there are those that rooting against him because his boss may have had the wrong intentions when hiring him. The film also stars  Jean Reno (Ronin) as Ponton, Kevin Kline (Wild Wild West) as Dreyfus, Beyoncé (The Lion King) as Xania, Emily Mortimer (Lars And The Real Girl) as Nicole, Henry Czerny (Ready Or Not) as Yuri, Kristin Chenoweth (BoJack Horseman) as Cherie, Roger Rees (If Looks Could Kill) as  Raymond Larocque, Philip Goodwin (Men In Black II) as Renard, William Abadie (Sex In The City) as Bizu, and Clive Owen (Children Of Men) as Agent 006.

There were times when the film was just OK as far as humor was concerned because a lot of the intrigue of The Pink Panther is physical slapstick comedy and that can only be so funny at times especially when you've seen the same stunt done in a million other films. Then there were times in the film when they had some honest comedy and that was funnier than the slapstick stuff like Clouseau trying to learn how to say hamburger and then seeing it done in a real situation where he still can't say it correctly. I definitely enjoyed have Jean Reno in the film because I thought he was the perfect counterpart for Martin where he was very dry and almost didn't say a lot. You could say that he was the perfect sidekick for Clouseau and it worked because Reno was great. The funny thing is that even though you are looking for the killer in the film, the real villain of the film isn't even the killer. The real villain of the film is Clouseau's boss played by Klein who just wants Clouseau to screw things up so that he can sweep in and save the day and look like the real hero. So, it was kind of cool to have that in the film because it makes you want the bumbling idiot to succeed. One of the positives of the film was definitely the great cinematography from the stadium to the streets in France to the scenes in New York City and the hotel. The film overall was a lot of fun to watch and that's kind of how you have to look at it. With all that being said, I am going to go ahead and give the film an B for a final grade.