★☆☆☆☆
The Pink Panther may have been a reasonably entertaining movie, an uneven yet entertaining split between Eurotrash-y sex comedy, farcical slapstick and romantic caper, but its real star turn was Peter Sellers as the immortal Inspector Clouseau. No wonder, then, that for the first sequel in the series of eleven films – with another supposedly on the way, not to mention countless animated spin-offs – writer/director Blake Edwards chose to place Clouseau front and centre in a convoluted, yet ultimately meaningless, plot revolving around the shooting of a millionaire. “Meaningless” because the plot is only there as a framework on which to hang a dizzying array of slapstick sequences, sight gags, innuendo and running jokes.
It’s a bizarre choice, then, that for this low-budget remake of the well-beloved film, routinely cited as the best of the series and a mainstay on “greatest comedy film” lists, co-writer/director Keene McRae tosses out all but the title, going for an equally convoluted, yet no funnier, storyline involving aggressively unlikeable young people – “hipsters”, if that’s still the proper terminology – secrets from the past, and oft-promised yet rarely-actually-materialising scenes of brutal torture. For the viewer, the greatest torture will be trying to familiarise yourself with where in the story you are at any given point, as the narrative jumps back and forth through the time with the wild abandon of the clumsiest of hopscotch players. It’s difficult to imagine what sort of Clouseau-esque buffoonery could possibly have gone on behind the scenes to create such an almighty mess.