The Pink Panther 1/2* out of ****

Stinky Pinky

Because of his involvement in the “Cheaper By The Dozen” series, Steve Martin’s remake of “The Pink Panther” has been pitched as a PG family film with two simulated sex scenes, Viagra, a couple murders and Beyonce Knowles exposing a sheer lace bra in a recording session. Finger-wagging is lame, but then so are Martin and director Shawn Levy for pitching the movie to 12-year-olds. Who else is supposed to laugh when Inspector Clouseau needlessly knocks the bumpers off two cars as he parks his mini-mini Cooper?

Martin fails to fill just one of Peter Sellers’ shoes as Clouseau, handicapping his performance with a doubly thick French accent and overdone physicality. The bumbling detective is called upon to be, unbeknownst to him, a Trojan horse by Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Kevin Kline, DOA) in the murder investigation of the national soccer coach. Clouseau will draw the media attention and the scent while Dreyfus assembles a crack team to actually solve the case.

The killer’s identity doesn’t matter - Martin and co-writer Len Blum thought so little of the central plot that it’s obvious the coach’s murder would have been caught on tape anyway - and so we are left with 90 minutes of antics and aimless banter between Clouseau and his assistant (Jean Reno), Clouseau and his other assistant (Emily Mortimer) and Clouseau and Xania (Knowles), the coach’s pop-star girlfriend. Beyonce is a total blank, a groomed thoroughbred cast for her hair and cleavage; like Jessica Simpson, she doesn’t have a core personality outside the madonna/whore poses she strikes in her music videos. If you look real close, you’ll see her lips moving.

Kids could care less about any of these things. Most of them will laugh at the “hamburger” bit (which is nothing - nothing - more than a Saturday Night Live skit) and some of the dumber ones will pretend to laugh when Martin’s face is buried in Mortimer’s crotch. But then they’re kids, and know what? We don’t have to always judge movies - especially one with nobody in it younger than 24 - by whether kids will buy the DVD, watch it once, then package it sale with a Jessica Alba offering at the going-to-college garage sale .