It always annoys me that comic movies so often have to start with the origin story. I was in my twenties when the original cartoon came out, so I had no business watching it ;-), but it seemed to me that if you could accept the premise at all – which was pretty mad in itself – you could just put up with it as a motor for the plot without having to have it all explained. The “Pink Panther” films didn’t waste time explaining how Clouseau got (a) so incompetent and (b) so high up in the Sureté.
On the other hand, I suppose if they hadn’t had the origin story, they would have had to put in more padding, which would not have been a good thing.
