STEVE MARTIN - MOVIE REVIEWS: THE PINK PANTHER

Critics seem to agree that Steve Martin makes a better Inspector Clouseau than other previous pretenders, including Alan Arkin and Roberto Benigni, but they also agree that no one, including Martin, has been able to recreate the character that was born out of an accent that Peter Sellers created. ("When I got his voice," Sellers once remarked, "I knew exactly how he should look.") Writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times about The Pink Panther: "The character isn't bigger than the actor, as Batman and maybe James Bond are. The character is the actor, and I had rather not see Steve Martin, who is himself inimitable, imitating Sellers." Michael Srago in the Baltimore Sun writes that Martin becomes "the latest gifted comic actor to pale to near-invisibility before the memory of Peter Sellers." Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News writes: "One might be moved to say that Martin's performance will have Sellers spinning in his grave." And Stephen Holden comments in the New York Times: "The good news is that [Martin's] meticulous, witty performance offers a polished, likable gloss on a classic comic figure. ... the not-so-good news is that Mr. Martin's craftsmanship can't hold a candle to Sellers's instinctive genius."

10/02/2006