There's certainly some funny bits here and there. This movie, no matter how you slice it, is just bad. I'm more familiar with his filmography than I am with that of Sellers, that's just fact. I think it should be clear that I'm a fan of the guy and I have been for a really long time. This guy can't help but be funny, he doesn't even have to try to be funny and he's funny. And that's a shame because, honestly, Steve Martin is a natural when it comes to comedy. As if he's overcompensating for something. But the thing about Martin's performance that's so off is that he seems to be trying so fucking hard to be funny. Obviously, it doesn't help that the movie is really quite unfunny. But I'm still genuinely surprised that Steve Martin didn't even reach 25% effectiveness as the character. I'll be honest, I never expected Steve Martin's performance to reach even half of the effectiveness of Sellers' performance as the character. I'm certain that Martin is quite familiar with Sellers' work and knew that it wouldn't be easy to step into his shoes and play the role quite as effectively. And I'm certain that this pressure was more internal than external. With the Pink Panther, there's definitely a lot pressure. In My Blue Heaven, there was no pressure. And that is the fact that Martin had to step into Peter Sellers' massive shoes proved to be too daunting of a task for someone as talented as Martin is. The next one I have in mind is more probable. His character is not as buffoonish as Clouseau is in this movie, but he's not exactly Stephen Hawking. But then I remembered that Martin was in My Blue Heaven, and his character wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed either. At first I thought it was because Martin has, pretty much, made a career out of being the smart, sarcastic, but lovable, jackass that, essentially, asking him to play a character that, for all intents and purposes, is an idiot was too much for him. Anyway, with that being said, having now seen Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau, I can safely say that Martin did not do a good job as Inspector Clouseau in the slightest. I don't think there's any sort of arc that I missed out because I skipped the first one. The first reboot with Martin wasn't available on Prime, so I went with this one instead. And this is knowing nothing about these Martin Pink Panther movies, other than their reputations (which isn't great, of course). And that but is that if anyone else should ever play this character, and I were given all these actors to choose from, Steve Martin would be the one that I would go for 9 times out of 10. There's a big but in all of this (sorry for the play on words). There's no one else, in my mind, that should have ever played a role. We all know Inspector Clouseau is a bumbling, stumbling fool, who caused chaos everywhere he went and Sellers embodied that character perfectly. Despite the fact that, essentially, every film in the franchise (minus the one where Dreyfus becomes a super-villain with his own league of super villains) is very similar in tone and execution, Sellers' performance made it so that each and every one of those movies ended up being very entertaining. Anyway, I think we should talk about Sellers for a second and just how tremendous of a performer he was. So, in my opinion, I don't consider it part of the Pink Panther canon and most people don't, to be fair. You may have noticed that I didn't include Trail of the Pink Panther in here simply because that film, shot after Peter Sellers' death, uses cut footage from the previous films and flashbacks. The only one I haven't seen is the original Pink Panther and, in that movie, Clouseau is a supporting character. Out of the five movies Peter Sellers plays Inspector Clouseau in, I've seen four of them. When it comes to the Pink Panther, however, I'm casually knowledgeable. So, obviously, I can't comment on films I haven't seen and hope to maintain any sort of credibility. Sometimes, when I watch movies based on other, older movies, I have no idea what how to compare it to the original movie(s) it is based on because I haven't seen them myself.
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