The Love Guru --- Reviewed by Craig the Movie Geek

Posted June 23, 2008 - 10:18am by Craig Silliphant

Dir: Marco Schnabel   Stars:  Mike Myers, Jessica Alba

Synopsis:  Mike Myers plays Guru Pitka --- in order to be more than second fiddle to Deepak Chopra, Pitka must help a Toronto Maple Leafs player rekindle romance with his wife so he can beat his funk and win the Stanley Cup.

I was very scared going into this movie, as the advance reviews were pretty terrible.  After seeing the movie, I can say that the problem was a wasted idea of a comedian who is usually pretty smart.  There was so much room to do a send up of today's new age gurus, or Bollywood movies, or whatever --- but the Love Guru is pretty satisfied to just be a movie about booger, poop, urine soaked mops --- toilet humour.  Now don't get me wrong --- there's nothing wrong with toilet humour --- but even that humour has to be clever in some way.  Or there has to be more than just the toilet humour sustaining the comedy.  The entire feeling of the movie was desperation --- the characters, especially Myer's Pitka, are always winking at the camera, urging --- no --- begging the audience to find them funny.  Even Justin Timberlake, who I think is a scene stealer lately, could have been funnier.

That's not to say that there weren't some funny gags in the movie.  I'm not sure that it deserves the HUGE bashing that it's taking.  I mean, it's not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I've seen worse comedies that were treated more kindly by critics and ticketbuyers alike.

Myers is a funny guy, and it was disappointing that he didn't take The Love Guru to some places that were more clever.  It's good that it was a short 88 minutes --- though even at that length, there were 3 filler musical numbers and stretches of 10 minute intervals where you wouldn't laugh once.  Bottom line --- I didn't hate it as much as everyone else seems to, but it's pretty darn forgettable.

2 Dorks out of 5 on the Geek-o-Meter!