It's Complicated (2009)

If Alec Baldwin had a fan club, I'd join it. If Meryl Streep had a fan club, I'd join it. If Steve Martin had a fan club... well, I'm not sure I'd join it, but I'd at least leaf through the literature. It's not complicated to understand, then, why I rented It's Complicated.

Jake (Baldwin) and Jane (Streep) Adler have been divorced for ten years, but there's no animosity between them; Jake's remarried, and Jane runs a bakery. When the meet up at their youngest son's graduation, amicable turns to amorous when the two begin to carry on an affair, telling themselves it's not completely wrong. Aside from the complicating factor that Jake is married to a much younger woman, Jane's starting to fall for her architect, fellow divorcee Adam (Martin). It's love soup, and it's complicated.

A movie like this needs to be grounded by strong performances for it to have any chance of success, and on that count It's Complicated scores two out of three (which, if the Meat Loaf song is to be believed, ain't bad). Baldwin and Streep are at the tops of their respective games; Streep is entirely believable as the conflicted Jane, and Baldwin is uproariously entertaining as lothario Jake. The two have fantastic chemistry, so it's not difficult to believe the two were ever married, nor is it a stretch to understand why they'd want to get back together. Martin has some chemistry with Streep, too, but it's nothing compared to the way Baldwin commands the screen. Of the two Adlers, Baldwin is slightly better in It's Complicated, since he's just that little bit funnier. Every scene he's in found me grinning like an idiot; once he actually did something, then the laughter began. Little quirks like the ones that have made him uber-famous on 30 Rock abound here, making him the star of the show, even if as third-billed he has to steal it. Martin is weaker than the other two here, but this is a recurring theme for him; like Nicolas Cage, Steve Martin seems to have run out of creative steam - that is, if The Pink Panther is any indication. (Exhibit A, your honor)

Fortunately, Martin's not in it all that much, and a terrific supporting role by John "Jim from The Office" Krasinski forms an effective substitute in the laugh quotient. For each scene Steve Martin has in which he is not funny - indeed, often he comes off as entirely pathetic, schleppy in a way that makes Patrick Wilson look like Humphrey Bogart - Krasinski is hilarious, having honed his comedic timing on primetime NBC. Krasinski plays son-in-law-to-be Harley, who becomes wise to the ongoing affair but must conceal it from the rest of the Adler clan. His role in the film is small, but it'd be a scene-stealing supporting role if it weren't for the presence of Alec Baldwin.

That's the good news. The bad news is that It's Complicated is just a teensy bit too long and a teensy bit more uncertain about what it wants to say about adultery. With one leg of the comedy tripod dropping the ball (I'm looking at you, Steve Martin), there are parts of the movie that just aren't funny; for example, a dance scene featuring Martin goes on a bit too long and seems designed simply to evoke an earlier time when Martin's antics were funny. Here, though, it just comes across as tired. As for the issue of adultery, this is (appropriately enough) complicated. For most of the movie, the affair is treated lightheartedly; our protagonists are likeable people, and they like each other, so despite Jane's reservations there's not much to worry about. Moreover, we're trained to dislike Jake's new wife Agness (Lake Bell) because she's fickle and shrewish with a child from a previous relationship, yet a few scenes near the end of the movie align us a little more closely with Agness than perhaps is comfortable. Of course, I'd likely be griping if the film had made Agness a cardboard baddie, but I guess what I was looking for was something a little less complicated than what I got.

For the most part, though, It's Complicated is an uncomplicated romp with some fine performances captaining a pretty funny ship.
Rated R "for some drug content and sexuality," It's Complicated contains a few scenes of pot smoking and, of course, people having an affair.

The Pink Panther (2006)

Steve Martin’s done it again. I don’t mean that he’s made another comedy classic – to the best of my recollection, his last great film was 1987’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. By “done it again,” I mean he’s remade an old favorite (as he did with Spencer Tracy’s Father of the Bride) and turned it into a degrading spectacle worth less than the film on which it’s printed.

When it was announced that the Peter Sellers comedy classic The Pink Panther would be given the prequel treatment, I was mortified. Sellers was inimitable as the bumbling French Inspector Clouseau, and I feared that Steve Martin was all too American to play the part.

My fears were justified.

After a famed soccer coach is murdered and the Pink Panther diamond goes missing from his finger, the race is on to catch the killer before he – or she – strikes again. Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Kevin Kline) wants to put the bumbling Clouseau (Martin) on the case for one of the most hackneyed reasons in film history; while Clouseau stumbles through the case, Dreyfus will investigate and (presumably) solve the case first and become a hero.

In the original Pink Panther, Clouseau didn’t even solve the theft of the Pink Panther diamond. In fact, he fumbled the case so much that he was convicted of the theft himself! One of the funniest moments of the original was when Clouseau, mobbed by shouting women asking how he had become such an attractive cat burglar, told his adoring public that “It wasn’t easy.”

It certainly wasn’t easy to sit through Martin’s interpretation. Whereas Sellers had a naturally exaggerated French accent, Martin’s seems forced, especially in a protracted “English pronunciation” class, where Martin is unable to correctly pronounce “hamburger.” I sat through this feeling like a convicted man waiting for a pardon from the governor.

And, as good of an actor as Kevin Kline is, he doesn’t come close to Herbert Lom, the actor who played Dreyfus in the original movies. Lom’s over-the-top frustration with Clouseau was unrivaled by Kline’s almost too cool for the room sangfroid. Yes, it’s a prequel, but it might have been better served if Kline had played an altogether new character.

Most of the movie felt like an extended episode of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” replete with hits to the groin and embarrassingly predictable pratfalls. After a while, the dumb humor got to me, and I actually chuckled.

That’s not to say that the movie is entirely without any positives. Emily Mortimer plays the part of naïve secretary Nicole well, and her comedic delivery makes me wonder why I’m only just now hearing about her.

By far the highlight of the movie was a surprise cameo by rejected Bond-frontrunner Clive Owen. Owen has a sum total of two scenes as British Agent 006, “one away from the big one.” I’m not sure if this is a jab at Owen’s rejection for the Bond role or a tease for fans of the genre, but I know that after seeing The Pink Panther, I’m less optimistic about Daniel Craig’s upcoming Bond debut in Casino Royale. “You could have done a lot better,” I said after seeing Owen as 006.

“You could have done a lot better” was a recurring theme, as I continually thought the movie could have been improved. Throughout the movie, we’re told that Clouseau is an idiot, and his stupidity is rammed down our throats with gaudy displays of imbecility. In the end, though, Clouseau figures it all out with sangfroid that would make even Sherlock Holmes envious. This character flaw destroys our impression of Clouseau, a man who (in the original film) was not able to tell that his wife was complicit in the Pink Panther theft.

Notice that I’ve not mentioned Beyonce Knowles. That’s because she’s playing the same part she always plays: a foxy singer with something to hide. And she doesn’t play it well, either.

While it’s nowhere near as abominable as the waste of space Son of the Mask, The Pink Panther is just one of those movies that comes early in the year in hopes of turning a profit. Don’t be surprised if the movie’s up for a few Razzies, because it’s certainly not the gem of celluloid that the Blake Edwards-directed original was.

In the words of Inspector Clouseau, “Zis is an outrage!