COMEDY: 1hr 32min
STARRING: Steve Martin, Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, John Cleese, Emily Mortimer
Tray bon: Martin
When a “dream team” of detectives is assembled to catch a master thief of historical documents (the Shroud of Turin, the Magna Carta and, unthinkably, the whopping Pink Panther diamond), who better to take command than Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the French Police (Steve Martin)? Virtually anyone, in fact, but there you go. Then again, since the other crackpot investigators include Garcia and Molina, the inspector is in his birdbrained element.
Much to the ire of a despairing Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Cleese), the team is off to Rome on the tail of a haughty art dealer (Irons) who could be the burglar’s fence. But the daffy plot is the least of anyone’s worries. PP2 is essentially a string of skits, with a madly Frenchified Martin acting the pompous goat (and doing a way more effective job of it than with his first crack in 2006). The net effect is a giddy old giggle — except when Clouseau shows his softer side to his caring assistant Nicole (Mortimer). Thank heavens introspection isn’t his strong suit.
