Son of the Pink Panther (1993)

[Clouseau]

Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
Inspector Clouseau's biggest mistake lives on!

Plot Notes - a decade after the last Pink Panther film, and an unlucky 13 years since Peter Sellers died, Blake Edwards attempted unsuccessfully to resurrect the franchise with this entry... while the basic plot of the princess of Lugash being kidnapped and Clouseau's illegitimate child coming to the rescue seems like a good place to start, things get a bit confusing by about halfway in, and it seems almost as if someone said, "hey there haven't been enough gags up to this point, so lets drop everything we're doing and just see how many laughs we can pack into the second half, regardless of the storyline"... needless to say, everything falls apart in a very unfunny way, and while this film has its moments, it's a mostly forgettable and unimpressive piece...

Cast Notes:

• Roberto Benigni - as the son of Jacques Clouseau and Maria Gambrelli, Benigni has some big shoes to fill... because of his mother, his accent was supposedly Italian; but although he had never met his father, he pronounced several words the way his father pronounced them - lieu, beump, heunch... the other problem is that he often came across to me as if he was trying too hard... that is, he was over-acting, IMO... turned Jacques into too much of a bumpkin, if that makes sense... this may partially have been simply because he wanted too badly to be like Sellers; but i blame Blake Edwards, honestly, and i think this is a sign of what might've been, had Sellers lived and Edwards gained control over Sellers' next Panther film... it's not entirely Benigni's fault, but i just don't buy him, if you know what i mean...
  
• Herbert Lom - Lom's time, too, i think, had passed by the time this film rolled along... this is not to say that he didn't do a good job - he did - but the laughs with his character seem to have been exhausted... it's amusing to see Dreyfus' reaction to finding out Clouseau had a son, but after that, he really becomes unnecessary, and i never for once bought the romance between Dreyfus and Maria Gambrelli... i saw it coming, but it wasn't done at all believably...
  
• Claudia Cardinale - see if you can follow me here... 1) i thought Cardinale's accent was better suited for Princess Dala in TPP63 than for Maria Gambrelli in this film, but 2) i thought her acting was better in this film than it was in TPP63, but 3) i thought Cardinale's version of Maria was not as good as Elke Sommer's portrayal... make sense?? i hope so...
  
• Debrah Farentino - i went back and forth on her... at times, she was annoying, but at times, her beauty outweighed my complaints... the one scene that bothered me, though, was her love scene with Jacques... i thought she came across as way too forward, bordering on slutty... not a quality i would expect of the Lugashian princess... so needless to say, i didn't really buy the romance between her and Jacques, either... i'm starting to wonder if that's not Blake Edwards' fault, too... i dunno...
  
• Robert Davi - i've never seen Davi play a different character than the one he plays in this film... to me, this is the same role he played in the James Bond adventure, Licence To Kill... of course, in that film, he was a drug lord, but he's the same tough-guy villain with an expensive yacht... nonetheless, i thought he made a good villain in this film, and at times, it almost felt like it would have been better if this had been a straight-forward drama... notice his annoyed look when Jacques plays doctor!
  
• Burt Kwouk - Cato provided some of the best laughs of the film for me... first of all, when he came out of the ice box in the rabbi costume, that was fabulous! and then, i even liked when he took out Hans there near the end... i've always liked Cato, but i'm not sure Kwouk ever stood out as giving such a hilarious performance as this one! very cool!
  
• Graham Stark - Balls was fun the first time he appeared in a Panther film, but it was starting to get old already by the second appearance... this time, i think i'd have been much happier if they'd just excluded him altogether... apart from giving Stark an opportunity to quote the famous "You've got Balls" speech again, i'm not sure why they even bothered... nothing against Stark: i'm just tired of the character...

Animated Titles - perhaps the high-point of the entire film, i absolutely love the titles for this film... i loved the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"-style interaction of the 3-D animated Panther with live action (particularly when Henry Mancini hands the conductor's baton to the Panther), and while there weren't many gags timed to the music, it was a generally fun and enjoyable segment...

Music - i was kinda let down with the music in this film... Bobby McFerrin's arrangement and performance of the Pink Panther theme during the titles was fantastic, but from there on, there was nothing worth mentioning, really... Jacques' main theme throughout the film was silly, and seemed to put the character in a box, and the other music during the film was just generally unremarkable... my one consolation was that the end-titles arrangement of the Pink Panther theme was again inspired, and served as a reasonable update of the classic...

[ben]

I love this movie. I think considering circumstances and the history of the series, a great job was done by all. I don't want it considering that "oh no, theres no clouseau" or anything. For what it is by itself, I think it is a great movie. Unlike "Trail of the Pink Panther", for instance, its hard for me to sit there and consciously try to anaylze it because I find myself enjoying it thoroughly throught. Roberto did a good job. I like his character alot. In fact, I really wish they might have done another one with his son in it as Roberto.. I know this might be outrageous but I really do think considering the background, he really made the character his own and I am fond of the movie

[Dreyfus]

Well I've already watched the first half this morning. Off to watch the second half now. I;ve noticed a lot of things you said about the plot.

[panther67]

Dreyfus, did you ever finish it?

To me, Son is the worst. And regardless of the story, it is Benigni that ruins it, IMO, for his character is like an escapee from a lunatic asylum.

He is just too nuts, and crazy acting. No one can be that wacko. It just ruins it for me. Lom is the only thing holding this together at all.

But even Lom is washed out at this point.(what's Lom's status these days?)

I might watch it again, just to see if I can appreciate it any more.

Carl

[brushguy]

For me, "Son of the Pink Panther" was a very entertaining movie for the first 20 minutes, during which Dreyfus doesn't realize that Benigni is Clouseau's son, as this provides plenty of building tension for the audience.

However, once that realization has been made, the movie does really fall apart. The background story involving the princess was unnecessarily confusing, Dreyfus's tired acceptance of Clouseau's son is not funny at all, and Benigni's overall performance is somewhat mixed - at many times, he is on (very close to Peter Sellers's legendary performances, in fact), but at other times, he's way off.

I would have to agree that for the second half of the movie they decided to chuck the plot out the window and pack it with as many gags as they could - maybe Edwards realized nobody was going to be paying attention to the plot anyway?

All in all, I think the movie is very much a mixed bag...there are times when it made me laugh like with the Sellers movies, but then there are other times when it dragged and made me cringe.

[Dreyfus]

I think you pretty much summed it up there, brushguy. I agree with it all apart from Benigni's pefomance being mixed, I thought it was awful throughout the whole film