Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you have fond memories of Henry Mancini's iconic theme for this franchise and desire an effortless extension of that idea into the 2000's reboot of the concept. Avoid it... if you are looking for the Beyonce Knowles songs from the film or are a Mancini loyalist to such a degree that some contemporary adaptations of his theme could be offensive. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Pink Panther (2006): (Christophe Beck) The first two decades of the movie franchise of The Pink Panther were long beloved as breezy entertainment from the era of Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards, and Henry Mancini, lingering with its dignity largely intact into the 1980's until a ridiculous spin-off by Roberto Benigni in 1993. An attempt by MGM to reboot the concept in 2006 was met with disastrous critical response, though the main character was still popular enough to earn respectable grosses and surprisingly spawn an equally poor sequel in 2009. Playing the role of bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the reboot is Steve Martin, whose career had devolved to such an extent that he shamed himself alongside Jean Reno and Kevin Kline with his involvement in this movie. The plot pits Martin and Kline's inspectors against each other as they try to solve the mystery of the assassination of soccer coach and the disappearance of his valuable ring. Although placed intentionally at a disadvantage, Clouseau clumsily reaches the right answers and is vindicated with silly regard by the end of the story. Parody elements abound, as do cameos. Also in abundance was post-production studio panic, a trait common to the sequel as well. Director Shawn Levy originally sought the services of composer Christophe Beck for this assignment, but scheduling conflicts placed comedy veteran David Newman in the job instead. Thanks to the post-production delays, however, Beck was available to score The Pink Panther and Newman was fortunate to walk away from this debacle. Newman would likely have handled this project as well as anyone, though Beck was already by this point a veteran of ridiculous comedy scores, with multiple entries accomplished for Levy previously. Of course, anytime you're talking about music for this franchise, the shadow of Mancini looms large. It's nearly impossible to imagine any film in this series, no matter how bad, without its signature theme, and the 2006 reboot was well aware of this sentiment. Beck treats the Mancini favorite with great care, going so far as to employ the saxophone player from the original version of the theme, Plas Johnson, for a faithful reprise. One of the few truly interesting aspects of the reboot is just how viable Mancini's idea remains, its dated characteristics diminished in importance compared to its continued effectiveness as an identity of comic investigation in general. Some listeners may have tired of it by now, but it's difficult to figure any other way to musically handle this overwrought concept. The score for the 2006 version of The Pink Panther provides three straight forward renditions of the classic Mancini theme, the opening and closing titles containing saxophone and accordion performances respectively. The "Pink Panther Theme" at the very end of the score-only album is the fully retro arrangement (with vibes), and when you take these three presentations out of the running time of the product, you have twenty-six minutes of underscore in between. Perhaps as expected, the majority of this material takes the extremely malleable progressions of the Mancini theme and applies them to a variety of different emotional settings. The pairs of notes in that theme are the subject of this manipulation, though their inherent rhythmic swing is often retained as necessary. Beck rarely twists them completely out of their natural formations, though for Kline's character, he does translate it into a somewhat fresh mystery motif. Otherwise, you'll hear Mancini's music in various states of easy-going jazz and light romance throughout the score. The only exceptions are where the score excels, though these passages are the ones most likely to truly irritate Mancini loyalists. In "Paris Bound," Beck gives the theme George S. Clinton treatment, the baritone sax joined by 1970's keyboarding and percussion. Strikingly different from the rest of the score is "Perfect Day for a Murder," which takes the theme fully contemporary in the process of giving it a James Bond persona. If you can hear past the electric guitar, aggressive loops, and vocal manipulation of a dramatic, Craig Armstrong type of usage in this cue, you'll hear the fullest and most impressive orchestral applications of the entire score. The instrumentation utilized by Beck for The Pink Panther is otherwise standard for an orchestral parody score, aided in this case by a few worldly accents (like castanets). It's actually a bit disappointing that the composer didn't find a way to more frequently modernize Mancini's theme throughout the score after the impressive assassination sequence. As pleasing as it is to hear the traditional arrangements of the idea, it's been so over-exposed that the unconventional variations on this album are its unlikely highlights. Overall, it's still hard to discredit Beck's well-recorded approach taken to this project (he would return for the sequel), and the album is a completely effortless listening experience. It's always humorous when the Varèse Sarabande label has to indicate on the outside of the packaging that no music from a major pop star appears on the product; in this instance, Beyonce Knowles played a role as a singer in the film and neither of her two songs for its soundtrack in context were included with Beck's tribute to Mancini's legacy. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 35:02
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