'The Pink Panther 2'

"The Pink Panther 2" slinks into theaters this week with all the stealth of a monster truck with a bad muffler, or a Howie Mandel game show (or use your own favorite over-the-top analogy here). It is all about excess and extremes with any shred, sliver or speck of nuance as elusive as the Pink Panther diamond and apparently Jeremy Irons' self-esteem, but more on that later.

Steve Martin, back for Round 2 as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, is one of the writers, along with Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. Perhaps that is why Clouseau is in virtually every scene, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because really all the movie has going for it is whatever comedy Martin can squeeze from the moment -- speaking of analogies, blood out of a turnip comes to mind.

The truth is that "Pink Panther 2" is really not a movie at all but a series of short comedy sketches strung together rather haphazardly trying to masquerade as a movie. It's as if Martin made a wish list of all the people he could have fun playing with. So in reality "Pink Panther 2" is like a party, with games and guests, and everyone's been drinking way too much. Hopefully they had fun.

There is no real plot, the movie's filled with friends of Steve, the comedy is terribly overplayed, or the comedy is overplayed terribly (again, you can choose) -- what you're left with is a bag of tricks that has seen better days.

When we catch up with Clouseau, he's been dispatched to write parking tickets across Paris by the still envious Chief Inspector Dreyfus, played by John Cleese, an actor whose clipped, dry delivery is nearly flawless and is always funny -- even here, though he really should not be asked to bang his head against a wall ever again.

Meanwhile, in a rash of robberies, a mysterious thief who calls himself the Tornado has snatched the Magna Carta, the Shroud of Turin, the pope's ring, an ancient samurai sword and, of course, the famed Pink Panther diamond. A dream team of international sleuths is assembled, which allows for the addition of Alfred Molina and Andy Garcia (among others) to the cast. India's Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, known as much for her beauty as her acting chops, is the girl you can't trust. Emily Mortimer is back as Clouseau's girlfriend/assistant Nicole, and Jean Reno is his trusted sidekick, Ponton. Lily Tomlin signed on to play Mrs. Berenger, a sort of a political correctness officer who clearly has a special case in Clouseau -- yes, you're right, this is absolutely the most implausible character of them all, since when have the French cared whom they offend?