| Overall Grade: |
C |
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| Story: |
D- |
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| Acting: |
B |
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| Direction: |
C- |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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To think they could have kept going...
by Adam (movies profile)
Jul 22, 2005
What a mistake it was to continue the Pink Panther films even when Peter Sellers was dead. How it could even be possible is an easy question to answer: they took previous outtakes that weren’t put in the previous films and inserted them here. How they could have even had enough of these outtakes to fill an entire movie, well, they actually didn’t. Peter Sellers is not even the star of this film because the plot is about Inspector Clouseau missing and people being interviewed about his life. “Trail of the Pink Panther” simply doesn’t contain anything new from Blake Edwards, and there’s not much that can save the film itself, and the first thing to be blamed, of course, is the script.
If you’ve seen “Revenge of the Pink Panther”, you remember how in that film, Clouseau was falsely reported to be dead, and then he came out of nowhere and everybody knew the truth. For some reason, the filmmakers made a similar story here in “Trail of the Pink Panther”, but the difference is that Clouseau may be dead for sure. Now, I really don’t like the idea of Clouseau ever even dying at all. In the original films, he was like Mr. Magoo and seemed to be saved by everything even when the bumbling acts of his almost would lead him into death. To hear about our hero being dead is just troubling.
Actually, the people in this movie who are interviewed about Clouseau firmly state that he’s alive because they knew him too well to say anything else. Gosh, I sound terribly confusing; first I said Clouseau was probably “dead for sure”, now I’m saying that he may actually still be alive. There really is no way to say what happens because, well, I hate to say it, but at the end of this review there’s going to be a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen this whole movie yet, stop reading and enjoy the film’s other reviews (unless they have spoilers, too).
I was enjoying the beginning of the movie because Peter Sellers was in it, and he was playing Clouseau, and he was in the apartment hallway “dancing in the rice”. Remember that this scene exists because it was never put into the previous movies. Later, he’s on a plane, falls down the stairs outside and takes everyone else down with him. After that, he’s in his apartment and keeps getting knocked out the window by a lady opening the doors.
Suddenly, there’s news that Clouseau’s plane is missing and has disappeared over the ocean. The reporter who gets to the case is Maria Jouvel (Joanna Lumley), but if you’re thinking she wants to find Clouseau, think again. All she’s doing is going to people Clouseau knew and asking them about his life and what they experienced of it. She interviews Clouseau’s “A Shot in the Dark” apprentice Hercule (Graham Stark); Clouseau’s Chinese-fighting ally Cato (Burt Kwouk); Clouseau’s arch-enemy Dreyfuss (Herbert Lom), the Pink Panther thief Charles Litton (David Niven), and Charles’ wife Helen (Capucine), who is also Clouseau’s ex-wife. These interviews are not interesting because they include scenes from the previous films that will only be hilarious to those who haven’t seen them. We should only see these scenes in the films they originally came from. Following around Maria is Bruno (Robert Loggia), who doesn’t want the story to be heard.
Somebody interviewed who is new is Clouseau’s father (Richard Mulligan), who is a wine maker, so the scenes of how he raised Clouseau as a kid are new. But even this interview has big faults. Before Maria arrives, Clouseau’s father goes over to a wine tub that two topless women are bathing in… what was this movie rated? PG? Anyway, the film’s ending is very unsatisfying. (SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!) Clouseau is never found, and Maria Jouvel is confident by everyone’s claims that he’s still alive, then the film goes to an island and we see Clouseau with his back turned to us, then a seagull deposits waste on his arm. That’s when we hear Clouseau utter the words “swine seagull…”, and we can clearly tell that this isn’t Peter Sellers’ voice we’re hearing, but an imposter!
All I’m saying is that you really can’t make a good movie starring a person who is already dead. If Peter Sellers doesn’t appear in the movie very often, I can’t be satisfied. Inspector Clouseau is one of the greatest detective characters ever thought up, and he should be the star of the film. It’s when he appears in the film that the laughs come, though Herbert Lom has a few laughs up his sleeve once in a while. I’m not saying that this is a dreadful, terrible film, but I just recently saw the two best films of Peter Sellers’ career- “Dr. Strangelove” and “Being There”- films which are superior to this mediocre movie. Sellers’ heart attack was tragic and we all miss him for his wonderful work, but to think they could have kept going… oh, that was a major Blake Edwards error.
By Adam Zanzie (icebox482000) |
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