The cynic in me would like to believe that Steve Martin was just collecting another handsome paycheck when he signed on to star in The Pink Panther 2. However, having recently read his great memoir Born Standing Up, I initially had a hard time believing that such a talented, meticulous student of his art could be guilty of such a thing. This, after all, is a man who kept a spiral notebook that chronicled every single joke, one-liner, or magic trick he performed in his stand-up act... complete with notes on the audience's response. As his popularity grew, he felt an obligation to, as he writes, "not let the audience down."

Martin is not your ordinary artist. He is an accomplished comedic and dramatic actor, a playwright, an author, musician, magician, poet, and painter. There has to be a deeper, more personal reason why he would choose to star in a film, at first glance, as seemingly dreadful as The Pink Panther 2.

Of lesser consequence is the nagging question of why The Pink Panther 2 was ever made in the first place. The first installment was hardly worthy of a follow-up. Unbelievably, in many ways the sequel is even worse than the original.

Martin stars as the hopelessly inept Inspector Jacques Clouseau who is appointed to an international law enforcement group called "The Dream Team" to stop a high-stakes thief, who leaves his calling card at the scene of his crimes with the ominous name The Tornado. First, he steals the Magna Carta and then, in quick succession, the Japanese Emperor's Sword and the Shroud of Turin. It is suspected that his next heist will be the glorious Pink Panther diamond. It is Clouseau's assignment to thwart the evil deed.

Teaming up with Clouseau is his loyal assistant and secret lover, Nicole (Emily Mortimer). Along with his sidekick Ponton (Jean Reno), Clouseau joins forces with an Italian supersleuth named Vincenzo Doncorleone (Andy Garcia), a Sherlock Holmesian master of deduction named Pepperidge (Alfred Molina), and the lovely Indian cop Sonia (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). Together, the four do their best to muster as much intrigue as possible out of the paper-thin plotline.

The actors have fun and, occasionally, so does the viewer. The best sequence is a great physical comedy scene in which Clouseau tries to choose a bottle of wine in a first-class restaurant. Another is a witty exchange between Clouseau and Pepperidge trying to out-deduce each other. Unfortunately, such scenes are few and far between.

Which brings us to our original point about why this film was made. Suspicion here is that Martin's reasons are this: he wanted to pay homage to the great Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers who, in the original series, created inspired films that championed the loveable, seemingly dense Clouseau overcoming great odds to crack the mystery and solve the case. Clouseau, in essence, is the ultimate everyman who some would call a fool. Clumsy and socially awkward he is the least likely hero you can imagine. Yet, in the end, he confounds the wise and gets the job done. That is usually how it is with our heroes—they may not appear on the outside like anything special. But they possess traits that elevate them above their contemporaries.

In reading Born Standing Up, we discover Martin has a lot in common with Clouseau: unspectacular in many ways but possessing a variety of talents and skills that, on the surface, may appear foolish—this after all is a comedian who used to go on stage in a white suit and banjo wearing a plastic arrow through his head. Who can forget that he also is the originator of such memorable classics as "King Tut" and teaming with Dan Aykroyd as the womanizing Czechoslovakian brothers and their famous catch-phrase, "We are two wild and crazy guys." In the end, who cares if entries in The Pink Panther series are not great films?

Like Clouseau, Martin gets the last laugh and shows us that the joke might be on us.