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The Love Guru - Spoiler Free Review

Mike Myers is always trying to reinvent himself and to unleash new characters unto the world. It all started on “Saturday Night Live” and the creation of Wayne Campbell, the rockin’ co-host of the cable access show Wayne’s World, many other memorable characters we born during his SNL days.

In 1997 he created his best known character, Austin Powers and a superstar was born. After three Austin Powers films, Myers found more success voicing Shrek in DreamWorks Animation films of the same name. With personal pitfalls and some battles in the courts, success in front of the camera has eluded him in the 21st century.

Now Myers gives us the Guru Pitka in The Love Guru…

Pitka is an American born and raised by self-help gurus in India, his mentor is the Guru Tugginmypudha (that’s just the beginning of the double entendres that plague the script), embarrassingly played by Ben Kingsley, teaches him as a youth along side of a young Deepak Chopra about the virtues of loving ones self before loving others. I would be remiss if I did not mention the appalling attempt to superimpose Myers’ adult face on the face of a child actor to portray himself as a kid. It looked like a creepy bobble head of Myers on with a prepubescent body, it was dreadfully distracting.

Guru Pitka moves to the states and opens his own ashram in Los Angeles, and he quickly finds himself becoming the "next" Deepak Chopra. Bitter that his rival has been on Oprah and he has not, Pitka is given an opportunity to appear on the talk show.

That opportunity comes in the form of Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) the owner of Toronto Maple Leaves. Her hockey team is in a bind, they are in the Stanley Cup finals and their star player, Darren Roanoke, is separated from his wife who has started a relationship with LA Kings goalie, Jacques "le coq" Grande (brilliantly played by Justin Timberlake). Since his separation Roanoke has not been at the top of his game. Bullard hires Pitka to come and reunite Roanoke and his wife, which would ensure a spot on Oprah. Hilarity ensues…well some hilarity ensues.

The Love Guru is just not that funny of a movie. Sure it has some LOL moments, and even a few "Ow my balls" moments, but the sum is far and away from equaling its parts and to be honest, that’s fine, I just didn't care. The moment I sat down, I just had no desire to see this film succeed or fail, my apathy was in full effect.

I don’t hate Mike Myers or his films; he has done some pretty funny stuff. So I Married an Axe Murderer is still a very funny film and I am under the belief that that film worked because Myers was not a goof-ball character, he was playing an every day guy. Granted he stole the show in portraying his character’s father as well and delivering some of the best lines of the 1990’s, but it was a supporting role so it was not overdone.

And that is where Myers fails in his character driven films. He just doesn’t know when to quit, he takes them so over the top it get stupid and childish. It’s like a thirteen year old boy who just discovered the word "Dick" is not only a name, but also a term for male genitalia; and goes on about it ad nausea. Don’t get me wrong, I love a goofy character as much as the next guy, nobody does it better then Monty Python. The thing about Python that works is they do is with some intelligence and it’s never overdone.

The Love Guru is based on a character Myers created many years ago in his personal quest to come to terms with the passing of his father and other detours live threw at him. He tested the Guru Pitka in comedy clubs, and I suppose it worked and maybe in person it does, but the translation just does nothing on film.

I do have to give a few kudos to some pretty funny moments in The Love Guru; Justin Timberlake delivers a lot of the laughs as Jacques "le cog" Grande (get it, le coq), well Timberlake pulls it off very well from his moles-tache all the way down to his Trans-Am with a big red rooster on the hood. He sinks his teeth deep into the roll and is by far the best part of the film. There is also a very funny Bollywood send up sequence when Pitka meets Jane Bullard for the first time. It comes out of nowhere and is quite a bit of all right.

I think the bottom line is that we are just tired of the Mike Myers characters; yes, we get it Mike, you can do funny accents and have goofy hair. Let’s try something new, I think our chakras would be in a much better place.