The Love Guru

Review By Matthew Rodgers

Mike Myers is something of a comedy chameleon, whether he’s the sex-mad bumbling spy, Austin Powers, or the lank haired creator of 90’s pop-culture quotes, Wayne Campbell, he has created some of contemopary cultures most recognisable characters. Its what he has chosen to morph into of late that is most worrying; voicing the least interesting character in Dreamworks Shrek franchise with all the enthusiasm of a late night phone quiz host reading from auto-cue. Then hiding under layers of make-up to save his embarassment in Dr’ Seuss’ Cat in the Hat. And now with this crass sports movie disguised as mystic mirth making, The Love Guru he has sadly manifested as a lazy comedian content with flogging the same jokes that were wearing thin about mid-way through The Spy Who Shagged Me in 1999.

Myers is Guru Pikta, a self-help spiritualist who uses “hilarious” carry on style acronyms to enlighten the world and hopefully one day achieve his dream of appearing on Oprah, thus becoming the greatest guru of all time. Seriously? When his abilities come to the attention of Toronto Maple Leaf’s owner Jane Bullard ( Jessica Abla – The Eye), she drafts him in to help restore the confidence of star player, Darren Roanoke ( Romany Malco – 40-Year Old Virgin) who’s girlfriends infidelity with rival player, Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake – Black Snake Moan) has had a disasterous effect on his performance. Let the tubleweeds roll.

The Love Guru’s major problem is that we’ve seen it all before; an ice hockey movie with people getting smashed in the face for comedic effect, phallus jokes that grew tired throughout the Powers franchise, and with the inclusion of Mini-Me actor Verne Troyer as Coach, midget jokes ensue to single handed claps. There are literally two or three laughs in the whole movie and even then you feel bad because you have sniggered at a lowest common denominator joke; interest wanes quickly after the second booger joke in ten minutes.

Nobody emerges unscathed; Myers just repeats his talk to camera trick of old, that fails despite the fantastic Morgan Freeman voiceover machine, simply because Pikta is not a very likeable character. Timberlake is completely wasted, comedy is hardly Jessica Alba’s strongpoint, and the cameo conveyor belt doesn’t exactly smack of A-List; Val Kilmer? Jessica Simpson? So surely Sir, yes Sir Ben Kingsley can add some much-needed quality to proceedings? The fact that he has a flatulance problem, acts bog-eyed and utters the words “doggy style” will answer that for you.

Worth watching only for the Bollywood style musical interludes, this doesn’t even fall into the so-bad-its-good bracket. It’s puerile, littered with weak puns, contains only enough material to be a 3-minute sketch, and offers very little that’s new for a “new-age” comedy.