Featured Review: THE LOVE GURU

As if seeing The Love Guru this weekend wasn't a bad enough assault on my cognitive thoughts, a mini-review of February's hapless Witless Protection can now be found in the review database here.


The Love Guru



Starring- Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Verne Troyer, Meagan Good, Stephen Colbert, Ben Kingsley.



Directed by Marco Schnabel



Grade: D-



"You've got a firm grasp on the obvious."

The Love Guru is Mike Myers' ultimate 'eff you' film. A big middle finger to the critics, fans, and studio executives who long pestered him about a new movie. 'When is the next Wayne's World coming out?', 'Are we going to see Dr. Evil in a spin-off sequel?'. People were bothered that he hadn't starred in a live-action film since Austin Powers in Goldmember in 2002 (I refuse to acknowledge The Cat In The Hat). Adam Sandler churns out a new film yearly. Judd Apatow has his name on a great deal of projects the last few years. Where's Mike Myers been?

And then The Love Guru hits. Guess that solved that question.

To say the film is monstrously bad on all accounts is a lie. It's monstrously bad on all but a few minor things that are absolute moot. Guru's supporting characters look like they are trying really, really, really hard to make things work and not laugh ridiculously between takes about how asinine the whole project is. Despite the stellar background of stand-up comedians in the film, I doubt any of them got to improvise much. This is Mike Myers' The Adventures Of Pluto Nash. This is his vehicle, and his alone, and it sank like the Titanic.

The film centers around a boy named Maurice (Myers, computer altered to look like a child, purposely bad) who along with Deepak Chopra grows up to learn the wisdom of Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley, obviously high from the on-set pot he smokes in The Wackness). As an adult, going by the name Pitka, he has become a rival to Chopra, now a famous celebrity guru. He gets an offer from Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba, only there for eye candy), the bequeathed owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who for the sole reason of having an absurd crush on him, puts her faith in Pitka solving the relationship woes of star player Darren Roanoke. Roanoke's girlfriend is shacking up with Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake), who just happens to be the star goalie of the Los Angeles Kings, the team the Maple Leafs are playing in the Stanley Cup.

Never mind the fact that these were two of worst teams in the National Hockey League last season (the sad thing is, the NHL gave full logo rights for the film, a desperate play to attract more fans), or that despite being an avid hockey fan, Myers couldn't have wrote a worse or less cliche hockey game scenario. No, if Myers stopped mugging for the camera for just one moment and gave a little screen-time to his co-stars, this ridiculous carnival of catastrophe could have been salvaged.

Timberlake seems to be the only one that at least makes an effort, not knowing the terrible fate of what he signed up for. As a French-Canadian goalie with a huge penis, he at least has fun with the role. Unfortunately we don't. Stephen Colbert, as one of the announcers of Hockey Night In Canada (though without Don Cherry, what's the point of calling it HNIC?), has an ounce of what he used to do on Strangers With Candy before he hit it big in Jon Stewart's entourage, but it's not nearly enough. Everyone else is criminally wasted.

Romany Malco had great moments in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and at least tried to be funny in Baby Mama. Here he gets a bigger role, but as a straight man in an unfunny comedy, he's nothing. Jim Gaffigan is a hilarious stand-up comedian, but gets relegated to five lines as the announcing partner to Colbert. John Oliver is a popular correspondent on The Daily Show, but here instead is just Pitka's annoying manager. Sharp-eyed Comedy Central viewers will even notice Daniel Tosh being given two lines and a cowboy hat. What a waste.

Overall, for what? So Myers can giggle his way through 90 minutes of obvious double entendres, and then point out the joke in case the idiots who wandered in from the latest Friedberg/Seltzer crapfest didn't get it? We get it, the CHARACTER has that personality flaw where he points out the obvious and makes jokes that are only funny to him and people on the screen being paid to read a cue card and laugh. But as a writer and performer, Myers has the power to not abuse that kind of control. Instead though, he took everything that was kind of annoying about his previous characters from Saturday Night Live and Austin Powers and exaggerated it tenfold. Some studio executive really needed to step in here and hit Myers' ego with a rolled up newspaper and say "No!"

The Love Guru would've made for a really easy 'F' grade, but since I'm stingy and have forever been numbed by comedy in general after Meet The Spartans, I give it a D- solely on the effort of Timberlake. Sure he's terrible, but I'm pretty sure he was the only one unaware about the conspiracy Myers had to screw with the public. Lou Reed had his Metal Machine Music, Mike Myers will forever have this branded on his resume.

No party time, no excellence here. If this is what we are to expect from Myers here on out, "Wayne's World 3" if ever made, will be a travesty to our nostalgic senses.