The Love Guru (Marco Schnabel, 2008): USA

Review By Cody Pallotta. Viewed on DVD.

I feel I must get right to the point. The Love Guru is one of the worst comedies of all time. I’m serious. I can’t fathom how anyone could respect Mike Myers after this movie. Myers, who earned critical acclaim for movies like Shrek and his television work on Saturday Night Live, will be hard-pressed to recover from this comical atrocity.

After watching The Love Guru, I question if I can ever take a chance on a mainstream comedy again. Throughout the entire 87 minutes, I only laughed twice at most. I actually felt frustrated when desperately waiting for the credits. In terms of story, Pitka (Myers) is a “Love Guru” who must assist hockey team manager Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba). Bullard’s star player is having romantic difficulties, which are thus ruining his skills at hockey. Guru Pitka must help patch things up between the player and his wife. At first Pitka takes on the job to gain an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey show”, but then he falls in love with Bullard. I found the story not only generic, but also tortuously predictable. Sports comedies such as Dodgeball are passable in some sense, but a movie like the Love Guru can not even attempt to reach that level. I had very low expectations, and this movie still did not meet them.

It appears that Jessica Alba has no place in this movie; other than to convince the average guy to sit through it until the bitter end. Myers must think he really has struck comedic gold here, because there is a new joke every minute. With a setup like that, it’s hard to even remain neutral about the film; the jokes are childish, cliché, and lame. There were times when I was actually in shock that a joke had made it to the final cut. I feel like I can’t even explain how awful this movie is in every respect. To say it in brief, there is nothing positive that this movie can offer anyone. The movie plays as if Myers forgot everything he knew of comedy, assumed the mindset of a young boy, and set out to torture his audience.

DVD Extras: If you’re feeling cruel enough to watch the special features you can look forward to several documentaries. One discussed the making of the film, while another describes the training of Pitka’s elephant. Also included are deleted scenes and extended ones, so have fun.

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Published:
10.20.08 / 2am
Category:
DVD, Films