Since Peter Sellers´ death in 1980, Blake Edwards seems to be the only person on the planet who hasn´t gotten over it yet. Since then we have seen the tasteless mess that was "Trail of the Pink Panther", the feeble attempt "Curse of the Pink Panther" and now this...apparently Edwards saw a tv-performance by Roberto Benigni, and felt that he had the talent to revive the Clouseau character, but sadly the result is a painfully unfunny chaos. There´s Herbert Lom as Dreyfuss, but he seems fatigued and too mellow by now, there´s Claudia Cardinale who played the princess in the first Pink Panther movie, but here she´s supposed to be Maria Gambrelli (from A Shot in the Dark). There´s Burt Kwouk as Cato and Graham Stark as Auguste Balls but that´s just not enough. Robert Davi seems to be doing his Sanchez routine from Licence to Kill all over again. Roberto Benigni, despite all his efforts, is left to aping Sellers in what is basically weak imitations of the well known gags from earlier films, and quite frankly, it just doesn´t work. The title sequence and Bobby McFerrin´s rendition of Henry Mancini´s classic theme is worth one star, though.
Review of Son of the Pink Panther
