Two Disappointing Movies

I watched two disappointing movies recently. The first was Frida. It was the story of the artist Frida Kahlo, and it focussed her stormy relationship with Diego Rivera. It was nominated for a bunch of Oscars and won a couple, but I found the movie to be tedious and boring. The narrative logic was not compelling to me. One scene just seemed to follow the other and I found myself saying, so what. The movie just seemed to be tumbling downhill, and I had to force myself to sit through the whole thing.

The other movie was The Pink Panther. It was nothing but a mindless entertainment, I'll grant that, but the old Blake Edwards' Pink Panther movies starring Peter Sellers were genuinely funny. Sellers played Clouseau as a naif who bumbled into the solutions of the crimes in the movies. In this version, Steve Martin plays Clouseau and it was a poor casting choice. I've never found Martin funny. His comedic work has always struck me as just plain over the top and stupid, and his take on Clouseau is the same. It's too bad because there's some good physical comedy and sight gags in the movie. The ending was a cop-out as well. Clouseau doesn't just bumble into the solution of the movie's crimes. He solves them with a couple of shrewd observations that leave the viewer thinking that he wasn't so stupid after all. The originals were much better.