The Love Guru (2008)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Better Late Then Never

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The Love Guru is actually as funny as any of the Austin Powers movies. It is cleverly written and is a LOAD of fun.This is an enjoyable movie all throughout.Humour is in a similar vein to the Asutin powers movies, though, apart from a few crass bits, I thought on a higher level still.The production values are very high, it is nicely edited and shot and Mike Myers and the other actors look like they had a fun time making it.And it shows.It is a fun, fun movie.How it managed to get such a low rating is totally beyond me.So many sanctimonious, know it alls commenting as if they are toff nosed art critics.Stuff 'em.It is almost like the Tulip Bubble and other instances of mass madness and lemming like behaviour. Sad that Mike had to be on the receiving end of it.Don't trust them. Hell, don't trust me. Just watch the first five minutes at least, as it is straight into the style of the movie.A small investment in time to make up your own mind.

In my quest to see the worst of the worst that Hollywood has to offer, I stumble upon this film. According to my younger brother, it was the worst film he has ever seen. I finally had the chance to see it and all I saw was: Horror, pain, misery and silence (I will explain that one later). First my opinion about Mike Myers himself. He was a great actor and his rolls in Wayne's World, Austin Powers and the first two Shrek films are great. But than his popularity falls down in the around 2003, with film rolls like The cat in the hat. The Love Guru is seen as the exact point when Myers career committed Japanese ritual suicide.I can say from the bottom of my heart that this is the worst comedy I have ever seen in my life. Say what you will about the Adam Sandler movies or the Friedberg and Seltzer movies (epic movie, disaster movie), at least they have some level of thought into it (not that it make these films good). This film is just an torture device.First the story. It is about guru Pitca (Mike Myers), who is helping an ice-hockey player (Romany Malco) to face his fears, so he can win the ice-hockey game so Pitca can be at Oprah's talk show to become the world's greatest guru. The plot is bland, uninspired, very predictable and just stupid. The only things I can remember from this movie is the stupid and predictable love-triangle, and two elephants having sex on an ice-hockey field. I just became less intelligent after saying that last bit.The characters are all bad. Myer's character was the worst one. He tries so hard to make the viewer's laugh, but fails miserably. The rest of the cast I can't remember a single thing except for the ridicules names. Like Justin Timberlake's character named Jacques "Le Coq" Grande, guess why he is called that way. Than you have Dick Pants played by John Oliver. The worst thing that can happen to a comedy is that the jokes make nobody laugh. Remember the silence I mentioned at the beginning of this review? That's what my brother remembers of watching this film at his school, because nobody makes a laugh, not even at the really bad stuff in this film. The comedy in this film can be summed up like this: Guru Pitca's ridicules face, bad sex jokes (like the one with the elephants), and about a million dick jokes, none of them are close to be funny.There is no hope for Mike Myers. He will never make a good film ever again. To all of you, stay away from this thing.

I both love and hate this movie. My perspective may be atypical because I don't watch television, follow hockey or read People magazine. I had never heard of Deepak Chopra or Mariska Hargitay before seeing the film and wouldn't recognize Oprah Winfrey if I were seated across from her. Mike Myers's Guru Pitka character is not likable or sympathetic and the romantic angle is not credible in the least, although Jessica Alba seems entirely sincere. Many of the jokes are insipid, some of the homoerotic humor is cringeworthy and a few jokes are pushed too far. But the film offers an abundance of humor at various levels. Ten minutes of this film offers more gags than many comedies offer in their entire length. I especially enjoyed the pop tunes played out of context, the music/dance numbers, the parody of Bollywood films, Ben Kingsley, the sportscasters, Verne Troyer's office, the animal travel cages and the notion of Canadian hockey team dependent on a black superstar. Other parts were extremely stupid, such as the cotton candy, Judi Dench and yoga bits. But there are more than enough gags that hit the mark or reasonably close to overlook the enthusiastic and energetic efforts that fell flat.

I have waited 6 years to watch this movie last night because EVERYONE said it was so terrible. And they were right, it is a complete mess and easy to see how the combination of this movie and Cat in the Hat ended his career. Myers loves to try and force musical numbers into his movies and even those make no sense here. To open he plays 9 to 5 on a sitar, HOW do you chose that song? It makes absolutely no sense, not ONE person in the entire movie has a regular job. Is that supposed to be ironic? Whatever, like almost everything in the movie, it falls completely flat. Very few laughs in this movie. Probably the funniest thing is remembering how hot Myers was at the time this movie was made, hence being able to get some decent celebrity cameos. If he asked Crewman #2 from an original Star Trek episode to be in his next movie now, he wouldn't even get a call back lol. Probably my favorite joke is using the name "Mariska Hargitay" as a greeting like they say in Arabic, then having her actually appear while they are saying it. Gaffigan and Colbert as the hockey announcers had some funny moments, purely on their own comedic abilities. Other than that, the list of failures is long and depressing. Making fun of French Canadians, the guru presentation and lessons, the cameos, little person abuse, Myer's accent and his annoying facial hair, the fight with the "guard rooster", and so on. If you love hockey and want to see a Bollywood song and dance number at the end, you might be able to tolerate this movie, but that is a MIGHT.