Roger Ebert suggests that the best thing about the latest Pink Panther movie starring Steve Martin is the credits. "They made me miss the gold age of credits, when you actually found out who the actors were going to be, and maybe saw a little cartoon in the bargain!" However, he continues, "As the movie began, my smile faded. The actors are let down by the screenplay and direction." Kyle Smith of the New York Post , who didn't like the first Steve Martin Panther flick, likes the latest one even less. "I thought that once you were injected with something small but horrible, it meant you didn't have to deal with the disease again," he comments. But Stephen Holden may have put his finger on the real problem with Martin's portrayal of Inspector Jacques Clouseau he's no Peter Sellers. Holden observes "His Clouseau lacks the demonic glee Mr. Sellers put into a character who seemed to originate from the inside out. Mr. Martin's Clouseau is a skillful gloss right down to the phony French accent, which lacks the layers of oratorical pretension Mr. Sellers put into it. Why is it, I wonder, that any number of actors can play James Bond, while Clouseau now and forever belongs to Mr. Sellers?" John Anderson in the Washington Post writes that Martin's performance "will have a similar effect on a multiplex that a slammed oven door has on a soufflé." And Greg Quill in the Toronto Star hits at Martin's portrayal even harder, saying that the movie represents "the sad nadir of his career, the worst movie he has ever made, a sorry, inexplicably dumb waste of money, talent and time."

06/02/2009