Ça Pue in Any Language

I take back what I said in my last review: Watching Mickey Rourke get staple-gunned in “The Wrestler� would be preferable to the sheer psychological torture of sitting through “The Pink Panther 2.� Bring it on.

   Steve Martin is widely acknowledged to be one of the comic geniuses of our time, but he should be publicly flogged for taking a writing co-credit (with Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber) for this travesty of a comedy — a term I apply generously.

   I actually came close to not cracking a smile for the movie’s mercifully brief 92-minute run.Only the short-lived presence of the great Lily Tomlin as a schoolmarm hired to teach Inspector Clouseau (Martin) lessons in political correctness managed to pierce my steely resolve.

   What makes a good comedy? Steve Martin ought to know. Even the greatest examples of the slapstick genre — Blake Edwards’ original “Pink Panthersâ€� (avec Peter Sellers) among them — have wit and coherence. “The Pink Panther 2â€� is little more than a series of set pieces and skits, many of them no better than a mediocre “Saturday Night Liveâ€� routine, stitched together by a barely-breathing plot. Guess what? The Pink Panther (France’s priceless gem) has been stolen again! It’s up to Clouseau and an international “Dream Teamâ€� of detectives to find the thief, in Paris or in Rome. Yawn.

   Worse still, there is hardly a single visual joke or punch line in “PP2â€� that even a child wouldn’t see coming from miles away. A restaurant that Clouseau manages to burn down early in the movie will surely burn again. Cakes decorated with the faces of the three rival “Dream Teamâ€� detectives will surely decorate their faces in the very next scene. Clouseau standing on the Papal balcony of St. Peter’s will surely be falling off it a moment later. In Papal garb, as if you didn’t know.

   Just about every actor in the nominally stellar cast seems to have wandered into the wrong movie. Emily Mortimer as love interest Nicole looks like a deer in the headlights; Andy Garcia as Italian detective Vicenzo looks like he wants to catch the next plane home. John Cleese, playing Clouseau’s immediate superior, tries to leaven the proceedings with his usual assortment of outraged looks and shrieks, but mostly appears pinched.

   Alfred Molina (British detective Pepperidge), Yuki Matsuzaki (Japanese “whiz kidâ€� Kenji), and Jeremy Irons playing a bad guy, of course (and dare I say it, looking a little stoned) fare no better. Jean Reno, the only authentically French actor in the cast, is one of the few bright spots. He plays Clouseau’s sidekick Ponton with admirable deadpan.

   Through it all, Martin pulls out all the stops: shamelessly mugging, hamming it up and trying to squeeze every last drop of humor out of fakily Frenchified English. He’d have better chances of squeezing a drop of water out of the Pink Panther.

   For shame, Steve Martin! Zees eez la tomate pourrie (rotten tomato!).

   “The Pink Panther 2â€� is rated PG for some suggestive humor, brief mild language and action. It is playing at The Moviehouse in Millerton and the Cineroms in Winsted and Torrington.