The Love Guru

The Love Guru

Think of this movie as that d-bag that thinks he’s funny so he keeps telling the same jokes repeatedly. For some strange reason, everything involving this movie somehow reinforces the collective awfulness. Mike Myers’ movie is almost devoid humor and wit, and somehow feels stale at the same time.

The Toronto Maple Leafs team has a problem with one of their star players. He’s a black hockey player with marital issues. His wife is banging a scruffy Justin Timberlake. So, Jessica Alba, the owner of the team, brings in the second best Guru in North America, Guru Maurice Pitka.

Mike Myers’s Pitka isn’t that funny, yet he tells some of the lamest jokes in the movie. Myers attempts to create a completely different character, but Pitka comes across as a slightly different Austin Powers. This harms the film because he’s in most of the scenes. Unlike Wayne Campbell, who has a reason to mug at the screen, Myers’s Pitka feels the need to stare into the camera every time he tells a joke. You could probably make a drinking game out of it.

Yet, he’s not the only one that is terrible in this film. Justin Timberlake’s character doesn’t fare much better. He’s over-the-top and not really a compelling villain. He’s no Dr. Evil. Jessica Alba continues to reveal she’s just a pretty face and nothing else. Her character is forgettable and not really worth a paragraph to talk about it.

Romany Malco (from the 40 Year Old Virgin) is all right as the all star hockey player, but he’s not given much to deal with in the movie. Myers and he do have a bit of chemistry, but there’s not much there.

And, you can say that about the rest of the movie. There’s not much there. The script feels a bit uneven and like a second drift. Myers appears to have cut-and-pasted most of his jokes from his earlier movies. And, this is a shame, because it Myers is very serious about his humor, if that makes since.

After being absent from live movies since 2003, it would have been nice if he had come back in a better movie. The movie isn’t that crude or tasteless. The whole controversy and protest over the religious subject matter is warranted, because the movie is rather tame.

Grade: D+

~The Bollywood dance numbers are very funny and a nice parody of the videos on Youtube.

~Sir Ben Kingsley has an extended cameo in the movie, and it is a joke on his earlier work. However, it isn’t that funny.

~There is no reason Verne Troyer to even be in the movie. Hell, they do the same mini-me jokes. I know Myers threw Troyer a bone, but did the guy need to be the head coach?