The Love Guru
The Love Guru sees funny-man Mike Myers return to his tried-and-tested method of playing more than one character and acting like a fool.
Highly reliant on slapstick elements and cheap sex references, the film offers little in smart comedy or strong narratives, and instead uses Myers’ credibility from previous hits to attract audiences.
The film is based around Myers’ Love Guru, who is hired by Ice-Hockey bosses to bring their top player and his wife back together. Unfortunately, she’s run off with Jacques 'Le Coq' Grande, played by Justin ‘Trousersnake’ Timberlake, and the Love Guru must separate the two if he is to top the Guru popularity list and appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
It’s a mix between Wayne’s World and Austin Powers, minus the humour. Myers’ pronunciation of fictional Indian names to sound phrases such as “I have a small wiener†are highly overused, and are quite frankly wasted on anyone over the age of twelve who grew out of penis jokes long ago.
It feels as though Myers attempted to re-create the silhouette scenes of Austin Powers, but in a spoken format rather than visual comedy, and it doesn’t work nearly as well.
Jessica Alba tries to help the Love Guru succeed, along with Verne Troyer, aka, Mini Me, but this is a mild role for Alba compared to her previous achievements, which poses the question: Why did she bother?
It also begs to differ how the film can acknowledge the world of celebrity, through cameos from the likes of Jessica Simpson and Kayne West as themselves, yet have Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake wandering around as lead characters.
It’s almost as confusing as when Ross added Winona Ryder to his ‘celebrity sex list’ in Friends, only for her to make an appearance as Melissa, the party-planner, some years later.
The Love Guru also has an odd, computer-generated scene, which sees Myers’ head merged onto a young boy’s body in a flashback sequence. Whilst trying to be realistic, it is actually very disturbing, and again, fails to live up the expectations of Myers’ previous roles as Goldmember and Fat Bastard.
Despite this, the Love Guru is a likeable character, with his naïve and positive outlook on life, and a preference to ride around town on an elephant rather than in a car. But Troyer’s angry Ice Hockey boss is much less appealing than the timid Mini Me, and his arrogance fails to win audiences over or even create a laugh.
All in all, this film is just another notch on Myers’ bedpost and is a weaker version of his previous endeavors. Thankfully, there’s no sequel in the pipelines as yet. Let’s hope it stays that way.
By Kay Taylor.