How To Maintain Your Chakra By Avoiding ‘The Love Guru’H

Article originally published 06/18/2008 at popculturezoo.com

Lets get one thing out of the way. The Love Guru is a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad movie. This is not a funny movie… it is not a so-bad-its-good movie. What Mike Myers has excreted on audiences in the form of Guru Pitka is nothing short of the cinematic equivalent of a punchline to an unfunny and altogether annoying joke. You know the type: a joke whose setup is long and winding and is being told to you by a 13 year old who doesn’t really grasp how to make it funny, other than to add as many poo and booger references as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I love poo and booger jokes as much as any other 30-going-on-13 male out there. But this type of humor has been done so much better by so many previous filmmakers that it does nothing for me to see these jokes recycled in The Love Guru.

A brief synopsis: The Love Guru (again: a film you shouldn’t see) tells the story of Guru Pitka (Myers), an American who was raised in a small village in India. All grown up, Pitka returns to the US and embarks on a conquest of the self-help industry. Pitka’s skills are solicited by the Toronto Maple Leafs as they search for a way to calm the nerves of their star hockey player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco). Thrown into the mix are the Leafs’ hot-as-balls female owner (Jessica Alba), their midget head coach (Verne Troyer) and a ‘gifted’ opposing player (Justin Timberlake) who just happens to be shacking up with Roanoke’s wife.

There isn’t much in the film that is given to this cast to work with. Myers (who co-wrote the script) strings together a little over an hour’s worth of recycled dick & fart jokes from his Austin Powers days. He ties these together with equally-painful flashbacks from Pitka’s ‘guru training’ under the tutelage of Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley… seriously). I’m certain that the film was able to accurately capture the stringent and disciplined training regiment undertaken by real gurus in India… right down to the epic piss-soaked mop battles. What few ‘laugh out loud’ moments that exist in the film come courtesy of Stephen Colbert, who appears as a strung-out hockey commentator, and a great little ‘Spy Vs. Spy’ bit involving the mascots of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the L.A. Kings.

It is a shame that Mike Myers, the man who brought the world So I Married An Axe Murder, Wayne’s World and even the first Austin Powers flick has reverted this far with his characters. In The Love Guru, Myers is reduced to repackaging ten year old poo humor and forcing it back on the moviegoers for 10 bucks a seat. This stuff just isn’t that funny any more. If the box office returns for The Love Guru’s first weekend ($14million, 4th place) are any indication, maybe American audiences agree. After this debacle, Myers should take Guru Pitka’s advice and seek happiness within. Or, at least find some new material.