The Love Guru

Mark:

Ouch. There have been worse films in 2008, but not many.

When Toronto Maple Leafs hockey star Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) loses form after separating from his wife just before the playoffs, team owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) enlists the help of Guru Pitka (Mike Myers), the second greatest guru in the United States.Love Guru, The After growing up in India under the tutelage of Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley), Pitka has achieved fame and fortune with his only remaining goal being to replace Deepak Chopra on ‘Oprah’ and reach a larger audience for his trademarked version of self-help.

Mike Myers’ schtick has worn thin over the years and The Love Guru does nothing to change the perception that he is a one hit wonder. It is a long time since Wayne’s World and Austin Powers, and apart from the first in the Shrek series, his output has been pretty miserable. The same can be said for his co-star Alba, who surely must be wearing out her welcome with the Hollywood money-men. The Eye, Good Luck Chuck and now The Love Guru have all been critically panned and tanked at the box office. Were it not for the Fantastic Four films she may be close to the most unbankable ‘major’ star going around.

It is easy to imagine how the film could go so bad – have a writer/star/producer surrounded by his buddies (director Marco Schnabel worked on all three Austin Powers films while co-star Verne Troyer appeared in the latter two) and there’s a fair chance there was just no-one around to know things were so badly off track. Even still, someone had to sign on the dotted line and it is a wonder they wouldn’t have realised this had ‘turkey’ written all over it.

The laughs are nearly non-existent while the sports scenes are predictable and the musical interludes uninspired. Critics of the mock-Bollywood film Bride and Prejudice would have a field day if forced to endure the song and dance numbers in The Love Guru, but thankfully hardly anyone will see it to complain.

It is hard to see how Myers can continue to get his films greenlit yet a quick look on IMDb suggests he has several in the works, not the least of which is Shrek Goes Fourth. It seems audiences will be ‘lucky’ enough to see/hear him for a bit longer still, even though his films continue to get excrementally worse.

Rating: 0.5 stars
Review by Mark Lavercombe, 14th July 2008
Hoopla Factor: 0.5 stars


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