Fox produces a Pink stinker

How bad is the new Pink Panther? So bad that they have kept it away from the national critics - which puts it on the same rarefied, reviewer-free plateau as Caligula (1979), The Scarlet Letter (1995), The Island Of Dr Moreau (1996) and The Avengers (1998).

Since it's been heavily publicised, I took a sneak peek. In fact, I stayed to the end, which is more than most people will manage. It's the most depressing and pathetic attempt at comedy that 20th Century Fox has produced this year - arguably even worse than Big Momma's House 2 and Date Movie, which Fox did dare to inflict on the critics.

As Inspector Clouseau, Steve Martin is so dead behind the eyes nowadays that he resembles an assassin, which in a way he is. He slaughters every potential laugh, as surely as he joylessly mutilates the memory of Peter Sellers. The plot?

The coach of the French national soccer team (played, in a masterpiece of miscasting, by the not noticeably Gallic Jason Statham, fresh from his triumph in Guy Ritchie's Revolver) is killed on the playing field while wearing the famous Pink Panther diamond.

Some of you may be wondering already why anyone would choose to wear a huge diamond ring during a soccer match, still less be allowed to do so by the referee. In that case, you are far too intelligent to sit through this picture or, indeed, most of the films that Hollywood tries to pass off as comedy.

You might think that no movie which bumps off Jason Statham within three minutes can be all bad, but you'd be wrong. Director Shawn Levy, who was responsible for another recent Steve Martin stinker, Cheaper By The Dozen, shamelessly steals - I mean recreates - sight-gags from previous Panther movies, every one of which he mistimes.

To bring Clouseau up to date with sophisticated modern tastes, we get jokes about Viagra and flatulence. The supporting cast try not to look bored, but even this is beyond Jean Reno, who gazes at everyone with a distressed expression that is understandable in the circumstances.

Kevin Kline, whose previous most demeaning performance was in Wild Wild West, is abject in the role of Chief Inspector Dreyfus (which used to be played by Herbert Lom). Beyonce Knowles manages the difficult task of being upstaged by her own derriere.

I like Emily Mortimer, so I am prepared to deny under oath that she was ever involved.

The Pink Panther
Cert: PG