Alan Arkin
Tell me do think he did a O.K. job as Clouseau we all know he not as great
Peter Sellers but do think he a O.K. job?
Charles
The genius of Peter Sellers was tragicly taken from us too soon, so it's inevitable that people will have an emotional attachment to his movies, but please don't let that color your judgement of this movie.
I just get the feeling that people start watching this movie determined not to like it. I once saw a review of the movie in a TV guide which was just four words: "No Sellers, No good".
Looking at it objectively as I can, as both a Sellers and an Arkin fan, I certainly don't think it was the best Pink Panther movie, that belongs to "A Shot in the Dark", but I personally think it holds up well with the 70's Pink Panther movies, and is certainly better than any of the 80's ones.
I totally agree. Martin and Arkin are imo both great comic actors. In their own field! They should have stayed away from the Clouseau character.
"I just get the feeling that people start watching this movie determined not to like it. "
Your feeling is wrong.
I am watching all these movies to evaluate, or re-evaluate them - I remember them as boring, stupid and silly waste of time, but often I have changed my mind once I have matured and seen things from a different perspective.
I am hoping, half-expecting and seeing whether that will happen again with these movies, so I have no eggs in any basket or any dog in the race. I certainly don't watch any movie determined to not like it - what would be the point of that? I WANT to enjoy movies, so I ALWAYS hope I will and can like a movie when I start watching it.
The rest is up tot he movie.. only IT will determine whether I will like it or not. If it's good, I will like it. If it's bad, I won't like it. Sometimes there have been exceptions, but your feeling is definitely wrong - in fact, it's almost the opposite for this movie for me; a reviewer trashed this movie and said it doesn't work, and I was - IF ANYTHING - 'determined to prove him wrong by finding something delightful about this movie' - perhaps they aren't mature enough, perhaps they can't appreciate certain things, perhaps...
...yeah. This movie IS trash, sadly. I wanted it to NOT be, so you are completely wrong.
When a movie you REALLY want to like and prove you can find something good about, turns out to be complete trash, it's a pretty big proof that the movie IS trash. If there WAS something good to be found about these movies, I would definitely have found it.
I guess in that sense, Steve Martin's movies are actually congruent; their quality is very much like this movie's. This movie might get a smile or chuckle out of me at some point, but those modern remakes were so bad, only the second one got one (1) chuckle out of me, the first one got nothing but 'I want to vomit and run through my window simultaneously just to escape the boredom and unfunny cringe of this movie'-reaction.
It's sort of miraculous how they got things SO wrong with SO many movies.
The first movie is ridiculously boring, it's very, very hard, if not impossible to watch it from beginning to the end without skipping anything or falling asleep or both. I would probably skip it in my dreams after falling asleep.
The second movie is better, but still very boring and doesn't quite work - it doesn't entertain enough, and even though some people seem to hold it as some kind of example of a good 'The Pink Panther' movie, I just can't see it.
This movie is boring, unfunny, un-entertaining and complete trash in pretty much every way possible, except of course the gorgeous 1960s sets, houses, cars, and so on. Sadly, the 1960s didn't ooze the kind of electric energy as the 1980s, so movies made in the 1960s tend to be boring in any case, unless someone expressly makes them energetic somehow (plus, the musics are really slow).
The modern remakes are just poor man's Johnny English - and those movies are nothing to write home about to begin with.
The 'clip show' movie is just weird, boring very annoying - Peter Sellers' random scenes from random periods and other movies, or so it feels. It doesn't quite mesh, pretty awful exploitation.
The Return of the Pink Panther is the only one of these movies I would consider 'good', and even that has boring bits you absolutely need to skip, but Sellers' magic comes through loud and clear in that one.
The.. what was it, 'Strikes Again'?, where Dreyfus becomes a supervillain, is quite ridiculous, and still manages to be a bit boring, and is no longer the 'best Sellers' - it's kind of hard to watch if you have ever had a toothache as well, and it's easy for your attention to wander.
The 'son' movie.. I just don't like that actor for some reason, he comes off as a poor man's Steve Martin that tries to look like Laurel - or was it Hardy?, and Steve Martin himself is awful on his 'The Pink Panther' movies. The female characters..
... well, let's just say that's 'feminism at its finest', while still doing the whole 'let's exploit men by showing scantily clad female bodies'-bit.
I seriously can't get into any of these movies, or understand why they made so many of them, when CLEARLY the humor didn't work most of the time even WITH Peter Sellers, and NEVER without him.