One out of
Five stars
Running time:
87 mins
Dismal, laugh-free comedy that's actually painful to sit through, thanks to a badly conceived central character, a lazy script and Myers' incessant mugging.
What's it all about?
Mike Myers stars as Guru Pitka, an orphan who was raised by gurus in India (including Ben Kingsley as cross-eyed Guru Tugginmypuddha) who has come to the US to seek his fortune in the self-help game. Pitka gets the chance he's been hoping for when Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), owner of ice hockey team the Toronto Maple Leafs, asks for his help in reuniting star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) with his estranged wife, Prudence (Meagan Goode).
Things are complicated by the fact that Prudence has started revenge-dating Jacques "Le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake, enjoying himself enormously with a deliberately awful Canadian accent), the well-endowed star player of rival team the L.A. Kings, which has had a serious knock-on effect on Roanoke's confidence. Will Pitka reunite Prudence and Roanoke in time for the Leafs to win the championship? And will he ever be as successful as Deepak Chopra?
The Bad
This is a definite case of all the best jokes being in the trailer and if you've seen the trailer, you'll know that that isn't saying very much. The biggest problem is that the character of Guru Pitka is badly conceived, inconsistent, borderline offensive and deeply unfunny, none of which is helped by Myers' incessant mugging and sniggering.
In addition, director Marco Schnabel has no sense of comic timing, laboriously spelling out every joke as if he's waiting for the slower audience members to catch up. As such, there are no big laughs and the only good bit of the film involves a brief fantasy sequence of Jessica Alba doing a Bollywood routine.
The Worst
On top of that, the badly written script doesn't even attempt to nail its emotional climaxes, instead relying on a set-piece involving two amorous elephants that falls embarrassingly flat.
Worth seeing?
In short, The Love Guru is a disaster on almost every conceivable level. Watch the Jessica Alba Bollywood bits on YouTube instead.