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The Love Guru - Review
Rated: PG-13 Distributor: Paramount Pictures Release Date: 2008-06-20 Starring: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Omid Djalili, Ben Kingsley
Directed by Marco Schnabel
Produced by Michael De Luca, Mike Myers
Written by Mike Myers, Graham Gordy
Visit the movie's Official Site!
What is perhaps most galling about the film is that it fails not because of any lack of effort on the part of Myers, who has clearly put a lot of time, energy, and thought into the film’s Guru Pitka character. Unfortunately all of his thoughts were extremely bad, and no one involved with the movie seems to have realized it. Myers failure (and make no mistake, the failure of this thing rests entirely at the feet of one Wayne Campbell) begins with his much touted Pitka character. The guru profession might seem ripe for parody, but it’s hard to stay awake let alone laugh when you spend an entire movie watching a guy stare straight into the screen speaking in a low, soothing monotone. It’ll be a miracle if audiences make it out of this thing without bedsores. Maybe Myers could have gotten away with Pitka’s sleep inducing drone, maybe it would have even been funny if he’d had something clever or interesting to say. Sadly, he does not. Pitka speaks only in fairly obvious acronyms or lame, worn out catch phrases. His dialogue is quite literally the stuff written on bathroom walls, and he delivers every line with a wink at the camera, as if what he’s saying is so familiar and so tiresome that the mere fact that Myers would dare to make his character say anything this idiotic is supposed to be, in and of itself, funny. It is not. It’s at best banal, and after you’ve watched him riff once on the silliness of self-help books with one poopy-joked acronym, there’s really no reason to laugh when for the tenth or the twentieth or the sixtieth time, he comes up with another one. The movie’s script is even worse than Myers’ character, though perhaps its awfulness is a product in part, of how much Pitka sucks. It’s written as if simply watching Pitka on screen is all that matters, as if Myers assumed we’d find Pitka so funny that all he needed to do was write a script which invented an excuse to keep his guru on the screen. The story has something to do with the Stanley Cup championship. A star hockey player for the Toronto Maple Leafs has broken up with his wife, and it’s affecting his on-ice performance. The Leafs call in Pitka to help him get his head right, and Pitka wanders around dispensing acronyms and making diarrhea noises to help the hockey player. Yes, diarrhea noises are actually one of the steps in Guru Pitka’s self-help program. I kid you not. Except you never once, not even for a moment, care about the character Pitka is supposed to be helping. Nor do you care if his team or anyone else in the entire movie ever does well. Instead you’ll probably end up wishing for an old fashioned, cold war era nuclear winter; especially for Justin Timberlake, who plays an offensively mustachioed, asinine version of a French Canadian. Timberlake’s character, like every other thing in the entire movie, exists only to deliver more kindergarten penis jokes for Myers to jerk off with. I take no pleasure in calling The Love Guru a shockingly infantile piece of garbage. When I say infantile, I mean that literally. If Mike Myers took a dump in a diaper, it couldn't possibly smell any worse than this script. Please bear in mind that I say this as someone who likes Mike Myers, I really do. He’s done plenty of fiercely hilarious work over the years, and I’ve always been quick to defend him. So I Married an Axe Murderer is an overlooked bit of genius. Wayne and Garth rock my world. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is still one of the most completely funny things I’ve ever seen in a movie theater. I don’t know if Myers has simply run out of funny and doesn’t know it, or if the world has changed and flat out passed him by. Maybe he’s just no longer relevant? I don’t think I want to know. Unless I’m watching a DVD or a Saturday Night Live rerun, I don’t ever want to see Mike Myers again. Mike, I’m giving your movie half a star because I think you genuinely tried. This wasn’t one of those callously conceived, piece of shit comedies designed by guys in suits to make tons of money by appealing to the idiot masses. It’s obvious you put a lot of love into this and so I’m giving you credit for that. It is however also obvious that you have absolutely nothing left. Quit now, before you’ve so tarnished yourself in the minds of the public that we start questioning the validity even of things you did in the past. This is the last pity-half-star you get. It’s time for retirement. Make another one, and we’ll all be out for blood.
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June 18th, 2008 at 00:57
I actually have never written into one of these things before, and maybe I'm just drunk from the NBA playoffs, but I find the idea that you're telling Mike Myers to quit because of one bad film to be a tad extreme. I'll admit, the previews don't look funny, and I don't plan on seeing it. I just am kind of against the idea of hope that the guy can improve. Like all of us, I am sure you have had a failure in your life, and I'd hope that you didn't listen to someone who said you should just quit because the world passed you by. Like you said, there are a ton of terrible "Meet The Spartan" type movies that litter the cinemas every year. I'd rather have Myers and Sandler trying than having to see previews for that junk every six months.
As for the world passing Myers by, I agree. Lets face it, the age of SNL is over. Even Will Ferrell is getting old. Judd Apatow and his followers are the kings of comedy at this time. Schtick has played out, and now we want a little more story and a little less silly. So while I agree with your premise, lets not tell a man to friggin' quit! It seems like you live by the idea "If at first you don't succeed...... give up and go hide out in Canada." But yeah, I don't have to watch movies for a living, so maybe it is that bad. I won't know until I don't have to pay for it.