The Love Guru has really limped into its release. In its first month in American cinemas, the film was met with disappointing box office results and lashings from every critic going. I won’t waste your time – the Americans were spot on with this one.
Pitka (Mike Myers) is a relationship expert enlisted by the owner (Jessica Alba) of the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team. Her star player has been under-performing since his wife left him for the goalie of an opposition team (Justin Timberlake), famed for the size of his manhood. Hilarity does not ensue.
Myers’ guru character could have been cute if it was restricted to a short skit but there is no way he can carry ninety minutes of comedy with such a superficial premise. If the man who gave us Wayne’s World and Austin Powers could still be considered a comic genius, there’s no evidence of it here. Instead, we are bombarded with crude gags and heavy-handed innuendo. If I was a 13-year-old boy it would’ve been great, but I’m not, so it wasn’t. To continue his quest for the male adolescent dollar, Myers brings Alba and Meagan Good on board to ratchet up the hotness factor. To be fair, if I was going after that corner of the market I’d probably cram my product full of penis jokes and smokin’ ladies too. Doesn’t make the film any better though. And what the hell is Ben Kingsley doing slumming it in a mess like this?
A lot of the jokes seem to be recycled from more successful Myers outings but recycled less successfully here. Those involving Verne Troyer, formally Mini Me, now the pint-sized coach, are as good an illustration of this as any. Maybe Myers has grown too old to relate to the audience he is targeting and his lack of relevance has forced him to revert to clichés. Unfortunately, the man who was arguably the high point of 90s mainstream comedy looks like he is past his best. He’s definitely not the one-man laugh fest he used to be.
Really, really crap. Avoid it like the plague.
