One out of Five stars
Running time: 92 mins

Lazy, poorly written and badly directed comedy that completely wastes its talented cast and doesn't have a single laugh in it.

What's it all about?
Directed by Harald Zwart, The Pink Panther 2 is the sequel to the 2006 Pink Panther remake, starring Steve Martin as bumbling police detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau. When notorious thief The Tornado steals a series of treasures from around the world, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John Cleese, replacing Kevin Kline) reluctantly assigns Clouseau to a dream team of international detectives (Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina and Yuki Matsuzaki) and tasks them with solving the case and protecting the priceless Pink Panther diamond.

Clouseau is aided by his faithful partner Ponton (Jean Reno) and his assistant Nicole (Emily Mortimer), while the Dream Team is also joined by the gorgeous Sonia (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), an expert on the life of The Tornado. However, when the Pink Panther diamond is stolen from under their noses, they find their reputations on the line.

The Bad
The 2006 remake received largely terrible reviews but was nonetheless watchable and managed to deliver at least a handful of big laughs. The sequel, however, is an out-and-out disaster, as there's only one decent joke in the entire film, a verbal duel between Martin and Molina, but it occurs really early on and the film never gets close to that level of verbal invention again. All the comic set-pieces fall embarrassingly flat.

The Worst
The press notes for the film refer to a symphony of accents. Perhaps cacophony is more accurate though, because the comedy accents are atrocious throughout – Martin doesn't put nearly as much effort in this time round and Garcia makes Italian sound like Spanish, while Cleese wisely opts not to do one, despite the fact that Kline played the same character with a thick French accent in the previous film.

Worth seeing?
The Pink Panther 2 is a lazy, badly made and dismally unfunny sequel that's only likely to appeal to the under-7s. Rent the original films instead.