YMMV / The Return of the Pink Panther

• Crosses the Line Twice: The Running Gag involving a gun and a cigarette lighter that looks like a gun.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A gag throughout the film is Clouseau exasperating Dreyfus so much that his blood pressure is constantly out of whack, less amusing after Peter Sellers' death from a heart attack in 1980.
  • Remember how the Pink Panther diamond got stolen in a jar of face cream? Well this one is a lot less funny after a Serbian gang (which is likely affiliated with the local mafija) repeated the act beat-for-beat in 2003, and after several more major heists the gang got the nickname "the Pink Panthers". As of 2021 they still operate... so please watch your jewelry, especially if it has any value.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • The opening heist of the diamond is done straight and is surprisingly suspenseful. It may also count as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, since the rest of the movie is an all-out comedy.
  • The animated title sequence may also count. Many consider it the best of the series, courtesy of Richard Williams.
• Questionable Casting: Of all the people to fill in for David Niven... Christopher Plummer?! It's not that Plummer gives a bad performance at all, and some would even say it's superior to Niven's. However, not only he was 19 years younger than Niven (and only a year older than Robert Wagner, who played Sir Charles' nephew George in the first film), but he easily passed for a decade younger than he was.
• Retroactive Recognition: The blind beggar is played by John Bluthal, who would later be best known for playing Frank Pickle in The Vicar of Dibley.

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