Having just returned from a vacation in Paris, it seemed appropriate that my first review after my return would be The Pink Panther set in, where else, Paris.

 

THE MOVIE-                2 stars out of 5

 

The Pink Panther is based on the original films from the 1960’s and 1970’s starring Peter Sellers as the incompetent and bumbling but lovable Inspector Clouseau. However, lovable is not the word that comes to mind regarding this film which is a pale imitation of the original. Starring Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Jean Reno and Beyonce Knowles, The Pink Panther is a series of crude and suggestive humor with plenty of physical humor. The word that does come to mind when thinking about this film is dumb as much of the humor and sight gags are simply dumb and extremely predictable. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few very funny scenes in this film. Just not enough for me to give it a recommendation more than as a rental.

 

THE VIDEO-                4 1/5 stars out of 5

 

The PInk Panther is encoded with AVC and presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1. At first glance, the picture quality on this release is very good as it boasts a nice and bright color palette with very accurate looking and well saturated colors. Black levels are quite good as well giving the film a nice three dimensional look. However, after a few minutes, you notice that one important detail is messing from the picture, namely detail. This film lacks the detail of the better looking films on Blu-Ray and in this regard is quite disappointing. Skin textures look a bit smoothed over as do subtle background details in general. In addition, the film looks a tad too soft as if it was filtered. The softness is particularly noticeable on distance shots which can look quite muddy. While this film has a lot going for it in terms on the overall image, it lacks the detail and clarity of the better looking Blu-ray releases.

 

THE AUDIO-                4 1/2 stars out of 5

 

Encoded with Dolby True HD, the audio on this release is quite good especially given that it is a comedy. The overall fidelity of the sound is quite good with a nice smooth and open sound with very good bass response. In particular, the quality of the famous musical score of this film is very well presented and sounds excellent. The dialogue track is well recorded and well placed in the mix. While long segments of the film are rather front heavy as one would expect from a comedy, the surrounds are used to excellent effect in many scenes giving a very impressive immersive field. These scenes are mainly the action sequences featuring physical humor or action and sound much better than I thought they would. I just wish that the video looked as good as the audio track sounded.

 

EXTRAS

 

While thee are several extras on this release, none are in HD. That is quite remarkable given that this is a very recent film. One would have expected that they would have filmed the extras in HD. The disc is BD-Live enabled but does not include a digital copy. The extras include 11 deleted scenes and three music videos featuring Beyonce. Also featured is an audio commentary by director Shawn Levy and an optional director’s commentary on one of the Beyonce’s videos. The extras include a documentary Cracking the Code and five featurettes including Animated Trip, Deconstructing the Panther, Sleuth-Cam #1: “KIller” Press Conference, Sleuth-Cam #2: Soccer Set Up and Sleuth-Cam #3: Curtain Call.

 

IN CONCLUSION

 

The Pink Panther features rather lackluster video and better than anticipated audio, the film is nonetheless disappointing as a film, in spite of its occasional humorous scenes. Recommended as a rental only.