Pink Panther: The Least interesting movie ever?

[Blade6119]

Im not a big steve martin fan, so maybe others care...but i am in utter disbelief that this movie was made...does anyone actually want to see this thing, or even feel steve martin looks funny in the preview?

[Ksyrup]

I generally like Steve Martin, but that movie looks like a steaming pile of shit and I can't believe they would attempt it, given Peter Sellers' brilliance in those movies. It's like the worst of both worlds - horrible choice for remake AND done in Y2K movie formula style (Beyonce? Good Lord...).

[Izulde]

Steve Martin is overrated and this has bomb written all over it.

[Ksyrup]

It doesn't really matter who they put in that role. The idea itself was bad, and the previews suggest the execution is even worse.

[Honolulu_Blue]

I agree. This movie will bomb. It was a stupid idea. They tried to do a couple of Pink Panther movies post-Sellars and they all bombed. Big time. This one will be no different. The franchise is dead, has been for years, and MGM (now Sony) should have left it as such. The movie was supposed to be released last year, which is always a bad sign.

I worked on the (European) antitrust aspects of the the Sony-MGM deal and MGM (and their lawyers) kept making a big deal about the Pink Panther movies and what a strong franchise it was, especially with the new film due to be released. I shook my head in disbelief every time.

[Ksyrup]

Roger Moore was pretty bad in one of the sequels after Sellers' death, as I recall.

[Swaggs]

I generally like Steve Martin, but that movie looks like a steaming pile of shit and I can't believe they would attempt it, given Peter Sellers' brilliance in those movies. It's like the worst of both worlds - horrible choice for remake AND done in Y2K movie formula style (Beyonce? Good Lord...).

I agree with you. This isn't a remake that can benefit from modern effects or anything like that. The originals were so good, there is no way this movie can offer anything over it.

[SFL Cat]

While I loved the original Peter Sellers' movies (at least the earlier ones) and I generally like Steve Martin, I have absolutely NO desire to see this.

[Izulde]

I need to pick up the movie collection to make my set complete. I get $10 off it too cuz I bought the Pink Panther Cartoon Collection :D

[Vince]

While I didn't think that this was going to be good or anything, I'm surprised you guys think it's going to be THAT bad.

[saldana]

i actually thought the one with roberto benginni as clouseau's son wasnt awful, but i have no desire to see this because of the beyonce factor...the steve martin part i could deal with, but not her.

[Glengoyne]

It looks so bad, that weighed against level of expectation....it might be good.

[Izulde]

It looks so bad, that weighed against level of expectation....it might be good.

You may have a point there. That's what happened to me with Zathura.

[IwasHere]

I need to pick up the movie collection to make my set complete. I get $10 off it too cuz I bought the Pink Panther Cartoon Collection :D
This is about the only good I see comming out of this movie.

I will now be able to pick up the DVD box set of Pink Panther Movies. :)

[Raiders Army]

I wouldn't watch the movie if someone paid me to watch it. My life is too valuable.

[rkmsuf]

"And starring Beyonce Knowles..."

That's all you really need to know.

[cthomer5000]

I couldn't be less interested in it.

[gottimd]

I couldn't be less interested in it.
Why not?

[JonInMiddleGA]

The Beyonce thing is a bad idea IMO, but otherwise, I thought the movie looked fairly interesting. I'm not planning to rush out & see it or anything, but it looked more interesting & worthwhile than 95% of the movies released in the past year.

[QuikSand]

I'm with the majority here -- it looks dreadful, is totally unnecessary, and almost HAS to bomb.

[Honolulu_Blue]

The Beyonce thing is a bad idea IMO, but otherwise, I thought the movie looked fairly interesting. I'm not planning to rush out & see it or anything, but it looked more interesting & worthwhile than 95% of the movies released in the past year.
The Beyonice thing also shows just how long this film has been delayed. Beyonce was added to the cast back when she was considered the "It" girl. She was everywhere. It's been a while know snce Beyonce was all over the place, mainly because she hasn't released anything (I think) for sometime. While having Beyonce in a film is never a good idea it looks even worse during a decline in her popularity. She's fallen off the map a bit (though there's no doubt she can reclaim her popularity once she does something new).

[QuikSand]

This looks like a great candidate for a wager. Unless the line has been set awfully low, I think I'll take the under, and bet it hard.

[Jonathan Ezarik]

Pink Panther: The Least interesting movie ever?

Did you see the ad for The Shaggy Dog during the Super Bowl?

As for the remade Pink Panther, when I first heard about this I was like everyone else: Why make this? And I generally like Steve Martin, but I don't understand this move. I might see it when it comes out on DVD, but for now I'll stick with Peter Sellers and the original franchise.

[Ksyrup]

It's not even the fact that Beyonce is in it, it's the idea that someone like her had to be added to the movie in order for it to fit the Y2K movie model that makes it such an easy pick for awful movie. On top of that, neither Steve Martin nor any other actor could do the Clouseau part justice. They ran out of juice toward the end of Sellers' career with this franchise, so the idea that it could be picked up at this point, with these people, with the kinds of crapola movie script ideas floating around Hollywood in 2006...bad, bad, bad.

[Butter]

I really don't get Steve Martin's career... parts of it I love (like "Bowfinger" and hosting the Oscars), parts of it are just unfathomably bad (like Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and now this).

Who is his agent and do they know what they're doing?

[waltwal]

and these people feel that they should be running the government.

i wonder if anyone thought of the idea of letting steve martin or another comedian come in and create a whole new inspector clouseau instead of imitating peter sellers' take on clouseau.

what really bugs me is that hollywood has absolutely no idea of how to make a good movie but they are convinced that they should be the intellectual and cultural leader of the country.

[Butter]

what really bugs me is that hollywood has absolutely no idea of how to make a good movie but they are convinced that they should be the intellectual and cultural leader of the country.

Yes, damn that Schwarzenegger.

[Passacaglia]

I consider myself a Steve Martin fan, but I can't think of anything good he's done in the last ten years.

[Izulde]

I really don't get Steve Martin's career... parts of it I love (like "Bowfinger" and hosting the Oscars), parts of it are just unfathomably bad (like Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and now this).

Who is his agent and do they know what they're doing?

Bowfinger is among the absolute worst movies I've ever seen.

[rkmsuf]

Bowfinger is among the absolute worst movies I've ever seen.


Gotcha sucker!

[waltwal]

it seems that success as a comic actor leads to the idea that the next step is serious acting which leads the actor away from what made them popular in the first place. steve martin and jim carrey made some of the most stupid movies i have ever seen and i laughed all the way thru them. jim carrey, in particular, has gotten away from what people liked about him in the first place.

can u imagine how dull life would be if the 3 stooges had decided to become serious actors? i am sure i have seen everything they have ever done 465 times- and i still watch them and laugh.

steve martin just got to the point where after years of mediocre movies he decided to take a chance on what may have looked like a good idea. but i still say that the first mistaken premise of this movie was to imitate peter sellers rather than a fresh approach to inspector clouseau.

by the way i recall reading that when it first screened last year it was so unfunny they had to pull it and refilm or re-edit the movie.

[cuervo72]

Really from the previews it looks like Martin is basically playing a bad parody of Sellers...I'm sure that's not what they intended, but the slapstick just looks way over the top. "Hey look at this, watch me fall right now, whee!" (I mean, I *know* PP is supposed to be slapstick, but it just looks very badly executed). I'd much rather watch "The Inspector" segments on Boomerang.

[ISiddiqui]

jim carrey, in particular, has gotten away from what people liked about him in the first place.
And has only gotten better :).

[Butter]

They get away from doing what got them liked in the first place because I don't know about you, but if I were one of these guys, I would be sick of being cast in the same role all the time (as Carrey and Martin were early in their careers... the crazy, manic comic lead).

What Martin NEEDS to get away from is saying yes to a truckful of money.

[Chas in Cinti]

I love Kevin Kline, tolerate Steve Martin, and enjoy Jean Reno. If they switched Kline and Martin's parts, made Reno a bad guy, replaced Beyonce with some no-name face... and stopped marketing it so over-the-top... then MAYBE it would be tolerable. As it is, Johnny English is probably my favorite of this type of movie done in the last 20 years.

Regards,
Chas

[JonInMiddleGA]

Bowfinger is among the absolute worst movies I've ever seen.

This (and some of the related discussion to Martin's film choices) caught my eye so I got curious.

I went and looked him up at rottentomatoes.com
(FTR, I'm not a big fan of the site or anything, I just knew it existed because it gets mentioned here from time to time & knew it would probably have a decent sized backlog of entires about him)

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/p/steve_martin/

Pink Panther/2006 - 24%
Shopgirl/2005 - 62%
Cheaper..Dozen II/2005 - 7%
Bringing Down the House/2003 - 34%
Looney Toons: BIA/2003 - 24% *(not sure whether this should count or not)
Cheaper .. Dozen/2003 - 24%
Novacaine/2001 - 36%
Joe Gould's Secret/2000 - 66% *(brief appearance by Martin)
Out-of-Towners/1999 - 20%
Bowfinger/1999 - 82%
Spanish Prisoner/1998 - 89%
Sgt. Bilko/1996 - 26%

So what it looks like to me is that:
a) Martin should avoid remakes (Bilko was horrific, and Out-of-Towners looked even worse)
b) Martin may actually be better at picking/appearing in dramas instead of comedies at this point in his career
c) His highest rated films since 1989's Parenthood are those in which he was also the screenwriter (current PP not withstanding). Seems like maybe he has a good script in him about every 5-7 years & the rest of the time he's just trying to earn a living/keep working.

[Recoil]

jim carrey, in particular, has gotten away from what people liked about him in the first place.


ISiddiqui is right. Carrey has only gotten better all the while choosing different parts than the stupid humor he originally was famous for. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a good example. Although way out there from his previous roles, he was great in that movie.

[moriarty]

I think two of Steve Martin's best films were Roxanne and Spanish Prisoner ... neither of which he played the over the top comedian for with that's worth. Although he did have a damn big nose in Roxanne.

[thetrilogy]

This is about the only good I see comming out of this movie.

I will now be able to pick up the DVD box set of Pink Panther Movies. :)

Be careful: "THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER" is not part of the 6 DVD collection. And that is probably the best one.

[Flame Eater]

My wife and I watched "THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN" the other night. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to puke in my popcorn. The apartment fight scenes with his man servent Kato are CLASSIC!

[Ksyrup]

I liked Parenthood, Roxanne, and LA Story. I'm on the fence about that movie where he played a fake healer. I don't think i've seen any of the others over the past 10 years or so.

[Ryche]

Leap of Faith is one of my favorite Steve Martin movie. He had a chance to play the over the top character, but also had other, darker dimensions to the characters as well.

[Schmidty]

Be careful: "THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER" is not part of the 6 DVD collection. And that is probably the best one.

I disagree - I find "A Shot in the Dark" much more entertaining and funny than "The Return of the Pink Panther". But opinions are a dime a dozen.

[IwasHere]

My wife and I watched "THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN" the other night. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to puke in my popcorn. The apartment fight scenes with his man servent Kato are CLASSIC!
Kato is freaking great.

Anyone know if Kato makes this new movie?

[Honolulu_Blue]

The American public have answered the question posed in this title with a resounding "NO!" Apparently this is not the least movie ever.

This just goes to further prove the decades old Mencken quote: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/12/boxoffice.ap/index.html

'Pink Panther' finds plenty of green at box office
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Inspector Clouseau bumbled his way to the top of the box office as Steve Martin's "The Pink Panther" debuted with $21.7 million to lead a rush of new releases.

New Line's horror sequel "Final Destination 3" ran a close second with $20.1 million, followed by Universal's animated "Curious George" at No. 3 with $15.3 million and the Warner Bros. thriller "Firewall" starring Harrison Ford in fourth with $13.8 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The overall box office rose slightly despite the Winter Olympics and a Northeast snowstorm, both of which kept many movie-goers at home. The top 12 movies took in $106.8 million, up 3 percent over the same weekend last year, when "Hitch" opened as the No. 1 movie with $43.2 million.

After a slump in which attendance dropped 7 percent in 2005, Hollywood is off to a better start this year. Revenues are at just over $1 billion, up 8 percent from last year's. Factoring in higher ticket prices, attendance has risen 5 percent, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Sony's "The Pink Panther" stars Martin in the role defined by Peter Sellers, whose French detective Clouseau was the idiot-savant hero of a string of 1960s and '70s comedy hits by Blake Edwards, who continued the franchise into the '80s and '90s after Sellers' death.

The remake drew a broad audience, with parents and their children accounting for 51 percent of the crowds and viewers evenly divided between those older and younger than 25.

"It was just all over the place, kids, parents, teenagers. We had everybody," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony, which inherited "The Pink Panther" from MGM in a Sony-led takeover last year.

[Desmond]

Doesn't Martin currently spend most of his time now writing more serious books and plays? I think he tends do shit like this and CBTD to support his other stuff, which he probably puts about 1000% more energy into.

[stevew]

I think the fact that PP was advertized heavily on nick, and was part of the nickelodeon pictures banner had to be the main reason it did so well.

[NoMyths]

Inspector Clouseau bumbled his way to the top of the box office as Steve Martin's "The Pink Panther" debuted with $21.7 million to lead a rush of new releases.
And yet, according to at least one forum member, this is a clear sign of both its quality and artistic merit, and should thusly be awarded.

[TroyF]

And yet, according to at least one forum member, this is a clear sign of both its quality and artistic merit, and should thusly be awarded.


Not one of those guys, nor have I seen or will go see the movie. . . but the dollars make a difference. No matter how they did it, 21+ million for that flick on an opening weekend is huge.

it looks like it'll end up making the studio money by the time it's done, and at the end of the day, that's all that really matters for a movie like this. (it certainly wasn't made as an Oscar contender)

Not sure how the hell this happened, but it has and I'm OK with it. Always liked Steve Martin. Won't be one of the flock to see this, but I can think of worse things than him succeeding.

[Ksyrup]

I bought the original at Sam's Club Friday night for less than $10 and watched it that night. Great stuff. It was made in 1963. Claudia Cardinale...never heard of her, but she was smokin' hot in 1963, boys. Robert Wagner with a head half the size of Ted Kennedy's is something I never thought I'd see, either.

There wasn't as much Peter Sellers as I remember from some of the sequels - David Niven was top bill - but it was still highly entertaining. Much better than this version, I think I can safely say without even seeing this one.

[IwasHere]

The freaking Pink Panther is #1 at the box office.

Unbelievable.

[MrBug708]

I saw this movie over the weekend and it was pretty good. In fact, other people were clapping when it was over, so it seemed to do well. Good, Clean fun but there were a ton of little kids there as well.

[Butter]

I must've missed the little kid appeal part, but it seems like parents will take their kids to see anything that's rated PG now in addition to G. My kids would probably revolt by the 15 minute mark.

[hoosiergoody]

Was one that went and saw the movie. I have also seen the earlier (true) versions. I still laughed quite a bit. sure there are some dumb parts and even dumber choices for actor/actress roles, but go for a good laugh.

[TroyF]

It's up to 46 million at the box office, still #3 as of last week. I'd imagine it'll do fairly well as a rental. Looks like this will end up being a success in terms of dollars and cents.

[OldGiants]

I saw this movie over the weekend and it was pretty good. In fact, other people were clapping when it was over, so it seemed to do well. Good, Clean fun but there were a ton of little kids there as well.My wife and I had a similar experience this weekend. Lots of families with little kids came in because Curious George had sold out. they loved it. We enjoyed it, too.

Would have preferred Peter Sellers, but then I would have preferred Alec Guiness over Tom Hanks in the "Lady Killers" remake. Both remakes were enjoyable, even if they were differently abled.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Perhaps part of the movie's success so far is that there isn't a hell of a lot else out there to see at this moment. I go for dinner and an action movie with a good friend about once a month, and there wasn't anything that fit our action movie category, so for a lack of anything else to see, we saw this.

I was concerned when the audience was roaring at a preview for some movie about a priest that becomes a professional wrestler, which was awful. With this type of crowd, I figured I was in trouble with the Pink Panther.

I figured I would hate it, as I'm not a big fan of over-the-top slapstick. For some reason, I actually liked it. Sure, there were parts that were over the top, but the pacing is brisk, Steve Martin carries many scenes, and the supporting roles are mostly well acted. Glad I saw it.

I think the pacing plays a huge role in any appeal that the movie has. Except for a couple of routines, they jump from one bit to another and they rarely linger on any one joke or scene. For me, this really cut down on the annoyance factor that some of the stupider scenes would normally have. So many times this type of movie will hammer you with one particular routine's stupidity under the amazing assumption that if something is funny once it must be funny seventeen times, but Pink Panther does a decent job of avoiding this trap.

One caveat. I was fairly buzzed after some beers at dinner, which I'm sure helped.

Still, I give this movie a thumbs up.