In this reboot, Steve Martin plays the bumbling French inspector, Jacques Clouseau and Kevin Kline takes on the role as his superior, Inspector Dreyfus. When the national soccer team's coach is killed in front of thousands of fans and his ring featuring the large, rose-colored diamond known as The Pink Panther is missing, Dreyfus has Clouseau take to the case. But Dreyfus doesn't have any faith in the man's skills, quite the contrary. He hopes that Clouseau will draw enough media attention that Dreyfus can solve the crime on his own, and grab all the credit for the bust. What Dreyfus doesn't count on (or understand) is Clouseau's odd luck that while he literally stumbles his way through crime scenes, he still manages to find the important clues that will lead to the murderer and location of the precious diamond.
Clouseau is partnered with Ponton (Jean Reno), the latest in a long family of police officers who has been assigned to Clouseau to keep an eye on him for Dreyfus. Reno (known for films like The Professional and La Femme Nikita) plays the perfect straight man against Martin's slapstick physical comedy. Clouseau tells his assistant that he will attack him at any moment in order to keep his reflexes sharp, and every time he does, Ponton easily blocks his attempts.
Clouseau's case will also take him to the murdered man's girlfriend, Xania (Beyonce Knowles), who seems to have every reason to commit the crime, but for some reason, Clouseau is convinced she is innocent (even when she appears in New York City with an underground diamond cutter). Perhaps he is a bit smitten by the singer.
The Pink Panther is definitely amusing. There are quite a few funny parts that show Steve Martin doing his best physical comedy, but there is also quite a lot that is annoying (the "I would like a hamburger" scene drags on a bit). This movie is definitely not the original one featuring Peter Sellers, but as Martin confesses in one of the featurettes, he isn't trying to replace it, he is just trying put another spin on it.
As far as featurettes are concerned, both the "Cracking the Case" documentary and the discussions with the movie's new animators called "Animated Trip" are definitely worth watching for any Panther fans out there. Other special features include Beyonce's "Check On It" music video and behind-the-scenes footage from various scenes from the movie. The Blu-ray doesn't really add anything in the way of features over the DVD, so if you were looking for a little extra here, then you will be disappointed.
As I said above, this isn't the original movie by any means, but it does an okay job bringing it into modern times and updating the jokes that wouldn't fit as well as keeping the jokes that are timeless, like the interactions between Clouseau and Ponton (though in the original series, the character Ponton replaces is Cato). The movie is far from perfect, but it will also illicit quite a few laughs, at least if you are into physical comedy, but it doesn't really compare to the original Pink Panther films (as in, the ones before Revenge of the Pink Panther).
