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I haven't seen the new Pink Panther and rather imagine I will not, having seen the promos (not to mention the utterly execrable pre-show short at Clearview cinemas).
I can't help but think what this movie could have been had they just swapped roles: imagine Kevin Klein as Clouseau and Martin as the bureaucrat. Klein, doing a mix of his characters from A Fish Called Wanda and French Kiss, but contained by the straitjacket of Clouseau's incompetence, and Martin as, essentially, Herbert Lom (whose slow burns, manic twitches and self destructive psychotic breaks were, for me, often the best part of the Panther films).
The problem with the new Panther is that Sellers was a subtle comic while Martin works broadly (Little Shop of Horrors contains one of my favorite Martin characters, and Martin's broad humor was a perfect foil for Michael Caine's more subtle comic turn in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).
Sellers' Clouseau derived his humor from the character's utterly unjustified self confidence while, really, the actor played it straight. Martin doesn't do straight, and thus his Clouseau doesn't work; he's just kind of annoying.
But oh, what it might have been.
