The Love Guru Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Terrible!!!

Mike Myers' comedies rank highly in my books. Wayne's World 1 and 2 are both immensely rewatchable, and the Austin Powers series get better and better on repeated viewing. In the absence of a fourth Powers film, the anticipation for this new character in The Love Guru was high. Sadly the end result is terrible!

Feeling more like a series of sketches than even Goldmember did, the film follows the Guru Pitka (Mike Myers) as he tries to reunite a failing hockey player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) with his true love in an attempt to get his game back. If he succeeds then he hopes to be invited onto Opera, and from there the world will be his. Jessica Alba plays the despised new owner of the Hockey team, and a somewhat love interest for the guru himself, and Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) plays the rude and permenantly angry Coach Cherkov. During the film we see the occasional flashback to Pitka's training under the tutorlage of Guru Tugginmypudha, played by Ben Kingsley who should be more ashamed of this than the Thunderbirds fiasco. Finally Justin Timberlake plays the love rival for Roanoke, the rather endowed Jaques Grandes.

The few laughs that do come are far between, and also in the trailer, meaning that the majority of the film is packed with gags that miss the mark totally, or are delivered so badly that they are spoilt. Myers tries too hard to do the knowing wink-to-the-camera that worked in his past comedies, and instead it feels like he is begging us to laugh. Whereas on, say, Goldmemeber you got the feeling that all the cast had a great time making the film, and the energy flowed onto the screen, here there is none of that feeling.

A terrible entry into Myers' CV, and one which he will probably try to brush under the carpet in the future.

Funny Film

I thought this film was quite funny.