The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Admirable film.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

One of the funniest films in the "Pink Panther" series: the best parts (the Poirot-style interrogation, Clouseau's attempts to enter the castle, the laughing gas, "does your dog bite?", "it was hard in the Resistance but not as hard as it is now", etc.) are hilarious, there is considerable cleverness in many of the elaborately staged gags, and although there are dry stretches, they are fewer than in the other series entries. Peter Sellers is in good form, and Herbert Lom is every bit his equal in laugh-getting. The cinephilic animated credits sequence is wonderful. *** out of 4.

One of my favourites from childhood, I spent many years laughing at this movie with my dad and brothers. So I was quite wary about sitting down to rewatch "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" after all these years, however I need to have worried as the movie still has several laugh out loud moments and is still a lot of fun.Plot In A Paragraph: Former Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) escapes from the mental asylum and tries to kill his replacement and the man responsible for his breakdown Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) When his first attempt fails, he decided to build a Doomsday machine and demand that someone else kills Clouseau, or Dreyfus will use the machine to wipe out whole cities and even whole countries... With several assassins from all over the world out to kill him, Clouseau must save the day and his own skin. There are a lot of laughs right from the off here. The scene at the mental institute, starts things off well, Clouseau's scenes with Kato (Burt Kwok) are hilarious as always, and a lot of fun, Clouseau in the gym and his attempts to get in to the castle are still comedy gold.Sellers nails his performance as Clouseau in his fourth time in the role, and for me his is the definitive Clouseau. Steve Martin wasn't anywhere near as good in the remakes. Herbert Lom is brilliant as the insane Dreyfuss, Burt Kwok is a lot of fun as Kato whilst Leslie Ann Down looks gorgeous as Olga.

For me, this movie is enjoyable because it's a total parody of the classic Bond films. It includes all the necessary elements: a madman with a doomsday machine who wishes to take over the world, a shapely female spy who abandons her country to join with our hero, (although she only thinks it's Clousseau; it's really Omar Sharif...). And more spies than you can swing a dead cat at, and of course, at the end, the villain's lair is utterly destroyed in a huge display of pyrotechnics. This makes the film unique in the Pink Panther series, and as a huge Bond fan, it makes it my favorite. Tragically, Peter Sellers died shortly after filming this picture, and all of the subsequent attempts to revive the franchise have, in my opinion, failed.

In "A Shot In The Dark" and "Return Of The Pink Panther", both ended with Clouseau having driven his boss Dreyfus insane with his ineptitude. This time, Dreyfus had undergone mental treatment and has supposedly been cured-but when Clouseau comes back, it's back to square one.Except this time Dreyfus escapes from custody-and HE becomes the villain Clouseau has to find and deal with! Hiring some henchmen, he kidnaps a scientist and forces him to build a doomsday machine with far-reaching destructive powers, a la a James Bond villain. His demand-Clouseau must die, or he will rain destruction upon any part of the world he chooses.This is better than the prior movie, at least in terms of story. Then- US President Gerald Ford is shown stumbling like Clouseau (he had such a reputation then), Clouseau manages to cause other people misery with his stumbling, but he does use genuine detective work to find his way to the castle where Dreyfus has his lair. It could have been better-for instance the scene where Clouseau is at Oktoberfest in West Germany and all sorts of assassins try and fail to kill him falls flat. Also there are irrelevant scenes of "stumbling for a laugh", though not as many as in the prior movie.The best of the 1970's series movies, but the original two are far superior.