When legendary treasures from around the world are stolen - including the priceless Pink Panther Diamond! - Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John Cleese) is forced to assign the bumbling French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin) to a team of international detectives and experts charged with catching the thief and retrieving the stolen artifacts.
by seven6guy
on 14/03/2009 0 of 1 people found this review helpful
After a long hiatus from the first film, Steve Martin returns for a second time as the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau who once saved the "Pink Panther" diamond from the hands from a thief. This time a mysterious villian "The Tornado" strikes and steals famous artefacts from around the world and triggers the birth of the "Dream Team" comprising of Andy Garcia, an Italian inspector, an English detective with superb powers of deduction, a Japanese whiz kid and surprise, Inspector Jacques. As he prepares to leave France, the Tornado makes a hit on the Pink Panther diamond. The journey to finding out the thief is laced with slapstick humor, speckled with language-deficiency jokes, lame and sometimes mildly sexual jokes but all funny and good. It is a warm welcome to see Steve Martin back as Insp. Jacques on the movie screen as I remember the first movie with fond memories. Even the kids watching in the room were bawling with laughter. This is one movie to catch the chase away the blues and tickle you pink!
I would be lying if I had expected this film to be better than the first "Pink Panther" film. Seeing Steve Martin reprising his role as the bumbling French police Inspector Jacques Clouseau takes a good part of your senses away as you watch him try to give a guy a parking ticket, burn down a restaurant (twice), karate fight two kids in an oddly manner, and eventually solving the missing Pink Panther diamond regardless of his bimbotic nature.
However, the sequel did bring in a wonderful new bunch of talented actors such as Andy Garcia ("The Godfather: Part III"), Alfred Molina ("Spiderman 2"), Lily Tomlin ("Nashville") and Bollywood beauty Aishwarya Rai ("Bride & Prejudice").
In the film, all of the world's historical artifacts have been stolen, including the Pink Panther diamond. Clouseau has been put on the Dream Team consisting of the greatest detectives each from Britain, Japan and Italy to recover the stolen artifacts. Soon, jewel expert Sonia played by Aishwarya Rai comes into the picture and joins the team on their case. Rai's performance didn't come off as fluent as expected as her dramatic acting style comes into play, while her British accent was passable.
Interestingly, the film contains a couple of adult jokes that seemed clear it wanted to cater to the older generation, which fortunately turns out quite funny! The story does have its moments of pure slapstick humour that may or may not leave you laughing out loud, but it surely is amusing. There is no pure logic to the film like the first movie and that is why it focuses more of Clouseau's wacky ways and his budding relationship with his assistant Nicole, who is being court by the team's Italian detective. Yet again, Clouseau's inability to pronounce "hamburger" is relieved.
The storyline is very simple and it doesn't take a genius to guess who stole the diamond. Watch it only if you can stand Steve Martin acting like a complete fool and forgive the scriptwriter/director for making him that way.
Production Photos - Click thumbnail for larger photos
