The Love Guru (2008) User Reviews (316)

An Opportunity Wasted by Self-Indulgence

[pgstreby · 3/10 · 20 June 2008]

Mike Myers is a talented guy, but this vehicle is an embarrassment. The funniest parts are gleefully juvenile, but they are, unfortunately, outnumbered by gags that are simply juvenile or, worse yet, juvenile and mean-spirited. For example, some of the jokes directed at Verne Troyer's character sound like they were uttered by a 15-year-old classroom bully, not written by an intelligent man in his forties. I'm all in favor of offending PC sensibilities whenever possible, but do it right: cracks about Keebler elves show are just stupid and artistically lazy.

More scenes of young Pitka might have explained better how he grew into the adult he became, and Rajneesh could have been fleshed out a bit. I suspect that a lot of character development and back story were left on the cutting room floor. What should have been cut were the cameos that were either pointless or self-referential without being truly funny.

The plot wasn't exactly Citizen Kane quality, but it could have worked with better writing. After all, if anything cries out for satiric treatment, it's the self-help and New Age movements. With such target-rich subject matter, how did Myers manage to make such a dud? I think that it's a case of plain self-indulgence. Jim Carrey and Robin Williams are two other talented, over-the-top funny men who do some of their best work when they show restraint and don't play themselves. Someone should have reined in Myers on this one.

For his penance, I suggest that he lay off comedy for a while and do a few dramatic roles - including supporting ones - as he did (quite well) in "54." Williams and Carrey have shown other dimensions of themselves in dramatic roles, and I'm sure Myers can, too.

Better than its review average

[damianphelps · 5/10 · 22 January 2021]

Its a pretty cheesy film full of basic jokes and an even more basic premise.

It doesn't take itself as seriously as I think some of the people rating the movie are.

Was certainly much better than I had expected. Is it Myers best? Of course not but its not bad with some good highlights.

Not Mike Myers's best

[chosenone2005 · 3/10 · 24 June 2008]

I may be a bit generous with the star-rating system, true. But I do know what I was feeling after the credits started rolling. Disappointment. And don't get me wrong. I am a huge Mike Myers fan. I am a devout fan of Austin Powers, Wayne's World (where's #3 in the series???), and, actually, yes, I did enjoy Cat in the Hat, although it was not a piece of art. And I understand if fans of Mike Myers will still go to see this film. I did after all, even after reading the terrible reviews. Sadly, this time, the critics were correct. Mike knows better. The director should've known better. Mike Myers's return to live action comedy is more than disappointing. Even the character, Your Holiness the Guru Pitka, was unlikeable (which is a first for a Mike Myers character). He was so full of himself, so damn selfish, no one cared if he succeeded. His giggle-fits were too common to spark a slight giggle from the audience. And although the women in the film were pure eye-candy (Jessica Alba, Meagan Good, even Mariska Hargitay and Jessica Simpson made cameos), they became little more than that with such a flat script. Sorry Mike. Maybe next time. A fourth Austin Powers would be quite a way to get back in the game with your biggest fans:)

No love to be found here

[keiichi73 · 1/10 · 21 June 2008]

Mike Myers can't seem to get enough of himself in The Love Guru. He's constantly giggling at his own jokes, and mugging for the camera as if he thinks his latest comedy creation is the funniest thing he's invented. I had a very different reaction. Pitka was born in America, and traveled to India to study under the cross-eyed Guru Tugginmypudah (Ben Kingsley), who taught his students lessons by having them hit each other with urine-soaked mops. Pitka devotes his life and his teachings to helping other people out with their relationship troubles, and hopes his words of wisdom will become so popular, he'll wind up on Oprah.

This is information we learn early on in the film (after Pitka serenades us with a Bollywood-style musical number of Dolly Parton's Nine to Five during the opening credits), and I pretty much knew right there that The Love Guru was going to be a very long 90 minutes. The movie makes a grave miscalculation with its lead character. Guru Pitka is not funny or likable. It's simply Myers talking in a funny accent, and coming up with as many alternate ways for saying "penis" as he can without losing the film's PG-13 rating. Pitka is not even a real character. Myers plays him more as an experiment, as if he's still testing the character out, and we the audience are the guinea pigs being subjected to the experiment. It's been widely reported that the reason why Myers hasn't done a live action film in five years is because he's been fine tuning his Guru Pitka at various comedy clubs until he felt he was ready. He was not ready, and he probably should have spent another five years if the end result is any indication.

Pitka is approached by Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), the owner of the struggling Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Her star player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco), hasn't been performing up to the best of his abilities ever since his wife, Prudence (Meagan Good), left him for the goalie on the rival team - a French player named Jacques "Le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake, embarrassing himself here) who is known for his over-sized "manhood" as much as he's known for his talent in the game. The character exists simply so that Myers and co-screenwriter Graham Gordy can have the characters say cock a lot more than humanly necessary. The Maple Leafs have a chance at winning the Stanley Cup, but not if Darren doesn't have his head in the game. The team's pint-sized coach (Verne Troyer) doubts that Pitka can turn the situation around, but the Guru is determined to help. He'll do this by finding a way to distract Darren from his problems (By forcing him to watch two elephants having sex, thereby taking his mind off of his problems with his wife. You figure it out.), and help him confront his over-bearing mother (Telma Hopkins), who has long cast a shadow over the star player.

The Love Guru is not a comedy, it is a cry of desperation on behalf of Myers and everyone involved. Comedy is funniest when it seems to come naturally out of the material, but everything seems so forced and strained here. It's almost like if they can't think of something funny to do, they'll throw in elephants humping each other, or light a midget on fire. And if that doesn't work, they'll throw in another couple references to male genitalia. If there's a bigger cry of comic desperation than limp innuendo humor, then it has to be out of the blue musical numbers that are not funny in themselves, the movie just expects us to laugh at the fact that the characters are suddenly singing for no reason. You know, I think I'm going to have to take that last statement back. There's an even more desperate form of comedy, and that would have to be building an entire scene around the fact that Guru Pitka has a different kind of food stuck in his beard each time we see him, building up to a sight gag where his entire beard is cotton candy. This movie has so many scenes of just plain wrong-headed desperation, you'd almost think it was intentional.

While Myers cackles and mugs his face with glee, pretending that he's having a great time, the rest of the cast kind of look like they wish they were somewhere else. Jessica Alba looks uncomfortable, and her scenes where she's supposed to be warming up to Pitka look more like she's hanging out with him out of pity more than anything else. It's not unusual in a comedy to have the supporting players stand in the background so the star can do his thing, but the cast here seem just as confused as I was as to what we were supposed to be watching Myers doing.

There is not a single laugh or moment of inspiration in The Love Guru. It's just a sad, depressing slog through material that's not funny to start with, taken by actors who seem to know it's not funny. It's bad enough when a comedy can't generate any laughs, but it gets even worse when you start feeling sorry for everyone up on the screen. You want to ask them and their agents what they were thinking when they signed up. You want to remind Myers of just how funny he can be, and why this material and character don't suit him. But most of all, you want to be able to somehow turn back time to before you gave the ticket counter your money, walk back out the door, and figure out another way to spend 90 minutes.

Self-indulgent mess

[megco-1 · 1/10 · 11 June 2008]

It was heavy-handed, painful and endless. The opposite of funny. An excruciating bunch of penis jokes strung together with some gross-out scenes. Wow! Penises can be short! Penises can be long! Oh, hahaha! Oh, and who can forget the musical numbers. Did I mention that they were choreographed? Mike Myers has lost the charm he exhibited in the Austin Powers franchise. And it's clear that he picked an inexperienced director for this so he could control the shoot. And why does Jessica Alba keep doing crappy movies like this and "Good Luck, Chuck"? Did someone tell her she was a comedienne? And Justin Timberlake -- well, no wonder he wears a wig and moustache throughout. Ironically, though the material is definitely for teen-aged boys, they probably won't go to see it because of the title. It'll maybe have one weekend, then go flaccid. Incidentally, the only truly memorable line in the entire mess is from Verne Troyer in an outtake run with the credits. But it's not worth watching the entire mess to hear it.

R.I.P. Mike Myers Career

[kgz00 · 2/10 · 19 June 2008]

I saw this film last night in a advance screening. I can say without a doubt it is the worst movie I've ever seen in the theater. It is simply a terrible movie. For every joke that's funny (which are few) there is about dozen that are not. Then there's all the jokes we've seen in previous Myers films that aren't so funny the 4th time around when they appear in this flick. Many moments in this film will having you looking around the theater wondering if anyone else finds this movie as stupid as you do.

That's really the bottom line. This movie is stupid. Take every fear you've had watching the trailer, times it by 10 and you will get an idea of how bad this film is.

By the way, the hockey in this movie will leave any one who loves the game sick to there stomach. The hockey portrayal left me in tears. Its brutal ! The film is a HUGE slap in the face to hockey. Thanks Mike Myers !

On a positive note though, Justin Timberlake and Stephen Colbert are hilarious. The only time i enjoyed the movie at all was when they were on screen. I never thought in a million years I would leave a movie saying " Thank God Justin Timberlake was is it."

In short : this movie is terrible ! Don't believe me ? Then throw your money away and see for yourself.

Bad karma or just bad movie-making? The Love Guru is a contender for worst film ever made

[dyl_gon · 1/10 · 20 June 2008]

I don't throw this statement around lightly. As someone who frequently reads reviews, I find that it is thrown around far too often, especially when there are so many bad movies out there. But I can say, without a doubt in my mind, that The Love Guru is the worst movie I've ever seen. It has officially dethroned classics such as Die Hard Dracula and Dark Harvest 2: The Maize. Those movies were made on minuscule budgets by no-talents. In comparison, The Love Guru was made on a huge budget by Mike Meyers, the creator of comedy classics Austin Powers and Wayne's World, which makes this train wreck of a film all the more painful to watch.

With The Love Guru, you can tell Meyers is trying to create another success along the lines of Austin Powers, but failing miserably. The thing about Austin Powers was despite being a dumb comedy, the movie had a likable, fun protagonist. In Meyer's latest outing, we get the Guru Pitka, a Charles Manson look-alike who has an obsession with penises. It's somewhat fitting that he resembles Charles Manson, a notorious cult leader, as by the movies end I had a strange urge to kill myself. Not only is the Guru creepy, he's also very unfunny. Whether he's making lame puns about "life" or talking about penises, he never manages to elicit any laughs whatsoever. It could be that his jokes are just bad. Certainly using jokes straight out of a children's joke book isn't a recipe for success. It could also be the fact that Meyers is so desperate for a laugh, he himself laughs at every joke and continuously looks at the audience, attempting to entice them to laugh along with him. You get the sense that he realizes the jokes are unfunny and the glances at the audience are his last failed attempts at getting a few laughs. Guru Pitka's character development just adds injury to the insult. One minute Pitka is being hailed as a spiritual healer who lives to help people and the next minute he's insulting a midget for no particular reason. There's no consistency to the character at all, which is what this movie is missing in comparison to Meyer's last few. Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers felt like real characters, where the Guru doesn't really have any character; he randomly does whatever moves the plot along forward.

Speaking of plot, the storyline is almost as ill-conceived as the title character. A stupid plot in a comedy is acceptable if it manages to be funny, but there's nothing amusing about a Guru's quest to go on the Oprah show. That's just plain stupid. It would help if the film wasn't filled with every cliché ever known to cinema-goers, but it is. The Guru has a self-revelation at the end and changes his greedy ways. The good guys triumph. And of course, Blur's "Song 2" plays during one of the hockey sequences, which has become the most commonly used (and groan-inducing) tune for any sports-related film.

Even if you can put aside the annoyingness of the Guru Pitka, the movie still fails to deliver anything remotely funny. The most common joke is to have a characters name resemble something vulgar, such as "Dick Pants" or some other Grade 3 level joke. The next most common is the Guru's constant repeating of "TM" after one of his catchphrases. It wasn't funny the first time, what made Meyers think it would be funny the tenth or fifteenth? There's also the repetition of jokes from Austin Powers, ranging from the plane to even the casting of Verne Troyer, the midget who made one of his only popular appearances in the Powers films as Mini-Me. Finally, there are the gags that are just plain lame. These involve elephants humping each other, the Guru wearing a chastity belt, the Guru having a battle using mops soaked in urine, the Guru sticking his head up his own ass (which is actually far less funny than it sounds), the Guru getting punched in the groin, the Guru doing battle with a rooster and the Guru engaging in two very long song and dance numbers on the Sitar, one a rendition of Dolly Parton's "9 to 5", the other a ear-splitting variation on "Space Cowboy" by Steve Miller Band. Both are in there for no particular reason whatsoever (and I really do hope it wasn't for laughs).

The other actors are fairly bad, although they really don't have much to work with. Jessica Alba continues her tradition of playing practically the same exact character, giggling and acting ditsy. Justin Timberlake is atrocious as Jacque Grande, although to be fair, his character was a one-note joke about Quebecois people. I'm bemused that Meyers would think Americans would find a joke about a people they likely know little about funny, especially when I didn't find it funny and I'm a Canadian. Verne Troyer just proves that the only reason he has even a semblance of a career is because of the novelty that he's a midget.

It really is hard to describe how utterly bad The Love Guru is. It's a stupid comedy, yes, but I'm a fan of those. I'm the guy who gave You Don't Mess With the Zohan a positive rating, so if anything this should be right up my alley. Instead, it's the worst movie of the year for sure (leaving Meet the Spartans way behind in its dust) and has reached it's place, for me at least, as the worst movie ever created. It's painfully unfunny and left me in a sour mood for a good hour after viewing. I'd rather wear a chastity belt for 30 years like the Guru rather than sit through this pile of crud.

Jumping the Shark is too kind a phrase for this mess!

[deanbean317 · 1/10 · 22 June 2008]

If you hate Mike Myers then this movie will be your holy grail...the one you hold high and proclaim loudly "See, I told you this A-Hole wasn't funny!"

If you love Mike Myers (as I do, in a totally manly non-ancient-Greece type way) then you'll just have to hang your head and silently agree.

What in Krishna's name went wrong here? How could these people have sat in an editing room and watched this hundreds of times during the final cut and not said to themselves " I have to save Mike Myers from himself!" I only had to watch the first fifteen minutes ONCE before I was ready to walk out.

How do I hate thee, let me count the ways; BAD acting, BAD casting, BAD writing, BAD directing, BAD dialogue, BAD excuse for a hockey mask (What is this, 1975?)

Is there anything good in this movie? YES! Romany Malco (Weeds, The 40 Year Old Virgin) rises above the dreck by playing a real person in a comic book universe. He's funny, sympathetic and believable; in short, everything this movie IS NOT.

I did get some good laughs though, out of the previews for "Tropic Thunder" and "Hamlet II". Do yourself a favor and miss this one (throwing up popcorn is a painful experience!)

Not even a tenth as bad as others make it seem.

[psypeterson · 7/10 · 14 October 2008]

To call this the worst movie of the year, or the worst movie ever shown in theaters, is sheer pompousness at its best.

That being said; this is by no means a great movie. It is hilariously crude, random, and quirky, but the humour is obviously not for everyone. The Love Guru uses a tried, but true, comedy formula and rarely strays from it. However; some of the off-the-wall jokes will have you laughing your face off, and will keep returning to your mind, making you laugh days after you watched the film. The acting is par, and Steven Colbert delivers the funniest performance I've seen in a long while.

Don't go into this film looking for genius or groundbreaking comedy mastery; go into this film expecting a decent laugh which you won't regret.

It was painful.

[Tralala_Qupcake · 2/10 · 19 June 2008]

I have seen some awful movies. Movies that just aren't that great, aren't interesting, lack that certain spark that a Great Movie always has. I knew, walking in to screen this movie this morning, that this would lack that certain spark. I knew this would not be a Great Movie, but I expected it to be at least somewhat funny -- it is, after all, a comedy. And as for expecting the rest of it to be stupid, well, it went above and beyond: it was absolutely ridiculous.

Generally, I'm indifferent to Mike Myers' stupid (for lack of a better word) humor. There have been some genuinely funny moments in past movies, but you won't find more than two or maybe even three in this one. The entire movie was basically sexual innuendo after innuendo after innuendo after humping elephants.

At one point, I wanted to bash my head against a wall. This supposed "comedy" was absolute torture to sit through.

But Stephen Colbert is interesting -- has a few funny lines -- and Jessica Alba was very pretty. Also, Verne Troyer has quite the clever line -- in the credits, that is.

I suppose one thing to say about this movie is, while not exactly in a positive light, it will likely always be in your memory, never forgotten. Although, keep in mind: seeing a movie should never hurt this much.

GREAT....if you don't take it seriously

[mickeyiotov · 8/10 · 22 June 2008]

OF COURSE this movie was going to be silly comedy. Its mike myers!!!! I entered this movie having no idea what was going to come out and maybe thats why i loved it. It was about random things but DID have an over all plot. The love guru tried to restore a couple while trying to find out about his own love.

Many people can relate to these jokes of religion and meditating and you may even learn a thing or too, but again don't take all things 100%. If you can carefully interpret what the movies motifs are then you will think it is a good move.

Overall, this is a movie of puns and if you like mike myers you will most probably enjoy this movie.

It is what it is supposed to be! A Silly Parody!

[inyourimage · 7/10 · 20 June 2008]

I read self-help books, I study religions and spirituality, and I thought this was a funny movie. Movies such as these teach us to not take life so seriously. It would seem that anyone who claims to have any sense of spirituality or enlightenment, and was offended by this movie, doesn't really understand Truth. To be pro the movie, or neutral to the movie is one thing, but to attack the movie, to be against the movie, would seem to be self-defeating. Attacking the movie gives energy (and publicity) to it, for which, I'm sure the makers are very grateful. I thought the headlines of certain people being 'outraged' by the movie were as humorous as the movie. Deepak knows...he took it in good fun.

Mariska Hargitay The Love Guru

[jaredmobarak · 1/10 · 17 June 2008]

I've always been told that if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all. So, I have to tell you all the best parts of the new Michael Myers vehicle, The Love Guru. You've got one really funny joke about Guru Pitka's mom getting a job that kills even though it was in the trailer, Stephen Colbert finally hits one out of the park as a robot cyborg after failing three previous times to elicit any laughs, Jessica Alba is gorgeous as always if you overlook her atrocious acting abilities, and Justin Timberlake shows he has no shame and steals every single second of screen time he is given. If Jacques "le coq" Grande had his own film, I'd pay to see it. Being that he is included in one that relies on physical humor, asinine wordplay, sexual innuendo, and Myers making a complete idiot of himself as he kills the funny out of every only slightly funny gag he does, Timberlake becomes the only reason I can say it was worth going to a free preview. The Love Guru is quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen and once I'm done writing this review I am going to crawl into bed and cry as I remember So I Married an Axe Murderer and the times when Myers could do no wrong (thanks for the Wayne's World callback Mike, you actually made me realize how inferior this film is more).

There is truly no point in describing a plot because there isn't one. The film exists as a series of set-pieces allowing Myers to act up his schtick and try to cause uproarious laughter in the audience. Besides some faint giggles at the fact that Myers himself smiles and winks at the camera, telling us he just told a joke, there is not too much to go on here. Sure there is a ton of uncomfortable laughter and gasps of awe at the wordplay—"can't face" said real fast to sound like…ahem—that you are shocked to hear in a PG-13 film, but does that really make you think the this was a success? I mean, the main focus is supposed to be the idea that Pitka has been hired to get the star player on the Toronto Maple Leafs back with his ex-girlfriend so that his hockey skills will return and win his owner, the second generation of a cursed family, "Stanley's Cup". You almost believe this thread has some merit until the resolution is glossed over quickly and rectified without the bat of an eye. The thing is held together by concert interludes of Myers singing in his way over-the-top Indian accent for entire songs. Can you say filler? (Although I will admit, "More Than Words" was fantastic, especially the visual nods to the actual Extreme video.) I might be wrapping this review up quickly to rest. My neck has some pain from too much shaking out of embarrassment for those collecting their paychecks on the screen. You could literally see the ca-ching dollar signs popping out of their eyeballs with every awkward moment. Some of the sight gags were funny, the first time they were used. I enjoyed the motorized magic carpet, the utter stupidity of Verne Troyer's office being half size, and the "Kelestrator" of course, (I wonder why they didn't TM that one). Admittedly, though, this is not my kind of comedy. While I enjoy a good low-brow laughfest like the next guy, I still would rather have a somewhat decently constructed story, something this tale lacks completely. Had the gags been separated and shown on a TV skit show, I might be calling them genius, however, when you string them together with the only common denominator being that the same characters are used, it gets old fast. Unfortunately, this film will work for a good chuck of America, but I just can't condone the spending of millions of dollars on something so trite and unenjoyable as this packaged and sold mess.

Now I don't want to leave Timberlake as the only good thing here. That would be doing a disservice to Manu Narayan who played Myers' assistant. With spot-on timing and perfect facial expressions, it was good to see someone having fun playing off of the grotesque guru. A nice companion, he actually makes Pitka better each time they are doing a skit together. I'm not really sure what to say about Myers himself. On one hand, he totally commits to this character and must be given credit for that fact. The problem is, though, that the role itself is paper-thin and very, very tiresome. As for Romany Malco, our second lead—although he got the shaft of no top-billing—he does well for what he has been given. Come on man, you were in the amazing 40-Year Old Virgin and have a hit TV show "Weeds" for which you are a big part of its success. Please take the time to do some work that has merit. I mean, wow, who'd have thought I'd be saying Get Smart might be your best movie option this weekend.

Oh, and Ben Kingsley…can I have a word? I am going to have to take away your knighthood. Yes, I know how much you like it and how hard you worked to achieve the title, but I can't allow someone with as little self respect as you keep the "Sir". Why, oh why, would you continue to do drivel like this? You are an Academy Award winning thespian. I can only hope The Wackness is as good as it seems so you may redeem a little bit of that respect in my eyes.

If you were expecting a bad movie, well... you were actually right

[Smells_Like_Cheese · 1/10 · 26 June 2008]

The Love Guru, when I saw the trailer, I wasn't exactly laughing, but it was Mike Myers, the clever man who has brought us Austin Powers and Wayne's World, I had to have hope. Well, Mike Myers, I have no choice, I really wanted to slap the heck out of him when I was watching this painful movie. Now I'm convinced that Mike must have some obsession with the penis, because there are so many penis jokes in this movie it just becomes painfully unfunny. Now there was a decent audience in the movie theater, like twenty something people, I did not hear one laugh, seriously, I even kept sighing, wondering when this movie was going to be over. Five people left early complaining, I wished I had joined them, but something inside me was just hoping that something would make me laugh, I was really pulling for Mike, but he has just made me so unhappy with this bad movie that was just his pathetic attempt of constantly reminding people of his good comedic days.

Guru Pitka is a self help guru who is very successful, but he is ranked as the number two self help guru of the world. The only way he feels like he can be successful is to be on Oprah. So he has to save a man, Darran, on a loosing hockey team in Canada to get him back with his ex girlfriend who is with this "cocky" winning goalie, Jacques Grande. Guru also meets the owner of the team, Jane, who he just falls for, so in order for him to get famous, he has to get Darran back with his girl and the team will start winning.

Yeah, I'm serious, that's the "plot", sad, isn't it? I just seriously cannot believe how low Mike Myers has sunk, the cast was bad and the story was just, I don't think it was even existent. Now, I hate it when people call movies racist without even thinking what the movie is supposed to be, but you know what?! I was friggin' offended by this movie, it was just plan sad, Mike Myers has lost his game and cannot admit it. He should have just stuck to the animated voices, because his characters now are just lame. There is nothing I could say more than please just stay away from this film, I know I said this before, but this is just a painful and unfunny movie. Good luck to Mike Myers, he'll need it big time after more critics review this bad movie.

1/10

Embarrassingly awful film

[pyotr-3 · 1/10 · 21 June 2008]

I went to see this movie hoping for lighthearted entertainment, because I have always loved Mike Meyers. I hoped the negative reviews were wrong. But they were oh-so-right. Don't waste your hard-earned money or time on this one.

The sight of Ben Kingsley playing a silly cross-eyed Indian guru (who has his apprentices fight with mops dipped in his bodily fluids) is very depressing indeed. To go from playing Gandhi to this is just so, so, so sad.

The presence of two gratuitous anti-gay jokes turned an otherwise innocuous movie into an unpleasant experience. Call me crazy, but I don't go to the expense of going to a theatre in order to be insulted. Do Mike Meyers and this film's makers think that gay audience members LIKE to be insulted as we sit there watching their movies? (which we PAID to see!!) I thought the Guru Pitka schtick might be fun, but it wasn't. The only bright spots were Justin Timberlake as a Lothario Quebecquer and the fairly fun Bollywood-style Indian dance number at the end of the movie. Otherwise it is just painfully unfunny and uninteresting.

Probably the worst film I have ever seen..

[nickf-17 · 1/10 · 20 June 2008]

Yes this one is getting panned and so it should as this is the worst film that you will see for some time, and that is no mean feet considering that at least half of the films that come out of Hollywood are frankly awful.

I was made to go through work and all of the bad reviews I read prior to watching this were correct in every way. In fact you will seldom find such universally negative consensus on a film, the only recent exception would be The Happening.

Myers last titles were good, but the sequels only survived because of the solid foundation that the first films laid, I refer to Wayne's World and Austin Powers. This film truly is terrible and what only shocks me more is that, on reading some of the other reviews here, some viewers liked it...?

My last point is Jessica Alba, as stunning beautiful as she is, as an actress she is quite average..

Enjoy..

Such An Embarrassment of Non-Riches

[Dshannon-8 · 1/10 · 24 January 2009]

I'm glad I wasn't in the UK's Celebrity Big Brother House this year. Not because I wouldn't have enjoyed meeting some of the others, but because at one stage fellow house mate Verne Troyer might have asked me about the last film he did with his best friend, and I wouldn't be comfortable lying to him and denying that I thought The Love Guru was a cinematic mutant mistakenly allowed to live and breathe rather than be put to a merciful sleep in the development stage.

Hey, I like Mike Myers. He has a measure of talent and charisma and likability, and I applaud his deserved financial and critical success with the Wayne's World and Austin Powers films (though he went one movie too far with Goldmember). Having said that, Myers, like his fellow SNL alumnus Will Ferrell, is like a kid wandering about a shop eating food off the shelves and generally behaving like someone in desperate need of supervision and guidance. Let's be honest, Ferrell's last decent leading role was in Anchorman (2004), and while he's been fine in supporting work like The Producers (2005), everything else that he's had a hand in has been a series of embarrassments of varying levels. And sadly, Myers can too easily fall into the same degree of arrested development.

People who know me know that I may go on about a lot of bad movies, but more often than not, I enjoyed watching them, and perversely can watch them again. This one, however, I'm ashamed that I ever wasted bandwidth getting it, let alone consider watching it again.

Myers' characters have always been one-note, with a limited appeal. But his latest Guru Pitka went too far when he thought of writing it down; in comparison, his Beatnik poet Charlie from So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993) was a character of multi-layered nuance, and more importantly, one that people would much rather watch. The very concept should have been seen as potentially execrable and insulting to Hindus. Yes, I know he tries to get around this in the movie by claiming that Pitka wasn't really a Hindu, but an American raised by Hindus, but like so much else in this movie, that attempt fails miserably given what passes for humor.

Hey, I like Dumb Humor – when it's done right. Dodgeball, Epic Movie, Jay and Silent Bob. But the gags in The Love Guru come in three flavors: racist, gross and infantile, and in various mixtures thereof. The racist names he came up with (Harenmahkeester, Satchabigknoba) is the sort of thing an ignorant ten-year-old kid would come up with to make the other ignorant ten-year-old kids in the playground laugh. Yes, isn't it hilarious that Indian people all have big long names? The rest of the atrocity is filled with other dodgy names like Coach Cherkov and Dick Pants, as well as alleged jokes about snot balls and nose hairs, humping elephants, food prepared to look like genitals, and buckets of urine – all of which probably would have sounded funny in 1988 in the writers' brainstorming sessions in the SNL offices at 3am when you're doped up on caffeine, but I honestly can't believe that a 45-year-old man wrote this crap down in 2008 and thought this would be funny in any other circumstances.

And the execution of these so-called gags is almost consistently accompanied by Myers with the same sort of mugging grin to the camera that he perfected with Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers – the difference here being that those other characters had moments where they really were humorous, but seeing Myers try it with Pitka is akin to watching an inept magician fail every trick, but still take a rehearsed bow after each one, oblivious to the negative reaction he's getting from his audience. And worse, he drives the jokes so deep into the ground, again and again, you expect them to bump into Hilary Swank piloting her subterranean machine around the Earth's Core.

And the storyline carrying these non-gags, like the sores on the back of a leper, is just as awful: a guru seeking fame and a spot on Oprah counsels a Canadian hockey player who wants to win back his wife from a rival, Jacques "Le Coq" Grande, who apparently is well-endowed (Get it? Le Coq Grande?). Another lesson to learn, Mike: Sports Themes Aren't Funny. Canadian Sports Themes Aren't Funny, Cubed. It may give you the chance to hang about with your heroes, but it's a waste of time for the rest of us. Some have tried to point out the satire in Pitka's self-help philosophies, but satire only works when it makes a point, and doesn't just appear indistinguishable from the targets it's allegedly satirizing.

In case I haven't made it clear, this is a Bad Film. Not So Bad It's Good, like The Oxford Murders (2008). This is embarrassing on levels I haven't seen in ages. Some bad movies have people in it who can rise above the mediocrity, but this one is like quicksand, sucking people down and suffocating them. And I'm not talking about the likes of Verne Troyer, Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake, who were basically employees who probably needed the money, or the cameos from Oprah and Val Kilmer. I'm talking about Ben F**king Kingsley.

How does a respected Oscar winner go from playing Gandhi to playing Guru Tugginmypudha?

The Love Guru

[studioAT · 3/10 · 11 November 2022]

If you thought Mike Myers was being given too much creative control on those latter two 'Austin Powers' films you haven't seen anything yet.

This whole film is a massive vanity project for Myers, and perhaps he needed a firmer director to say that perhaps not everything here was comic gold.

But it remains entertaining enough, in the sort of comic style that Myers has that you'll either love or hate.

If 'Austin Powers' was his attempt at mimicking Peter Sellers' 'Pink Panther' Inspector Clouseau then this is most certainly his attempt at doing the same with 'The Party'.

Overall, a very hit and miss affair.

Surprisingly Funny ONLY If You Don't Mind Stupid Humor

[Matttttttttttt · 7/10 · 20 June 2008]

I can see this movie is being murdered by reviewers on this board. Well, I'll give you my point of view on the film that I saw last night. Going in with low expectations, I actually found myself laughing VERY hard at certain parts of the film.

Sure, most of the humor is stolen straight out of the Austin Powers series, but it's still funny. The performances by Mike Myers, Justin Timberlake, and Verne Troyer are hilarious. Mike Myers is great as always and Timberlake is surprisingly very funny. The interaction between Myers and Troyer (stolen straight from AP) is absolutely hilarious.

If you're looking for a deep, thought-provoking movie, you're going to be sadly disappointed. But if you can't tell that from the preview, then maybe you should get your head checked out. The movie is all about "moments" and plays out like a long SNL sketch. If you can leave your mind at the door and accept the toilet humor, you might find yourself enjoying it.

Most people reviewing the film 1/10 have probably not even bothered to see it. Others are coming on the board and marking high ratings as "not useful" and lower ratings as "useful". I will bet money that many people find review "not useful" by just looking at the 7 stars I gave it. There are many people just destined to see this movie fail because they think it looks stupid. See the movie for yourself and don't allow others who haven't even SEEN the film tell you that it's awful.

Not As Bad As You Might Think

[GrantKanigan · 24 August 2008]

Although this may be the worst film of Mike Myers career, it is definitely not the worst of the year. Yes the film is ridden with penis jokes. Yes there are bad puns. In the end however, The Love Guru doesn't fail to make you laugh many times. It does use Verne Troyer offensively as the butt of many jokes, and doesn't have much of a meaning, but when a film can make you laugh for most of the running time, there is something great about that.

Most of the jokes are hit and miss, but there are so many of them that at least a few will have you in stitches. In a time where "Genre" Spoof Movies are bringing in millions, the Love Guru is at least a little taste of originality. We all know that Myers can make us laugh, but we might not of known it would take so little.

My last comment is that the Love Guru is very similar to Leslie Neilsen's WRONGFULLY ACCUSED. A very funny film that is worth catching once, because of all the laughs you'll get, but watching it a second time is like cheese gratering your face. The Love Guru isn't that bad, but it has the same feel. Worth catching on TV or at the Video store if you want to turn your brain off and have a good laugh.

mike Meyers 1963 - 2008

[booberry_rules · 1/10 · 22 June 2008]

Mike Meyers is dead. He's had 3 good movies his entire life and this is not one of them. The Love Guru may just be the worst movie since Meet The Spartans. Mike plays a guru that talks in a funny accent just like every other character that he plays. Except this time, it's not funny. Verne Troyer? I thought he died when he was touring with Kid Rock. He's not funny either. Stupid midgets. We get it, you're short!!! Jessica Alba may be the worst female actress in history. Anyone seen Fantastic Four? Yeah, she's even worse in this. Justin Timberlake? Your music sucks, your movie sucks, and most of all, YOU suck. You definitely did NOT bring sexy back by starring in this "film".

I give The Love Guru a 0 out of 10.

Funniest Film, i've seen since Goldmember

[djewson · 10/10 · 14 July 2008]

What are all these other people on exactly....! This really was the funniest film I have seen for quite a few years. The last film to make me laugh out loud this much was another Mike Myers Film - Austin Powers 3 Goldmember.

My girlfriend watched this with me also and even she was crying with laughter. Maybe its an English thing but the humour was right on the button.

DO NOT take any notice of the low score and bad reviews, do yourself a favour, make your own mind up.

I am actually going to see this again over the next week, I really did enjoy it that much.

Keep up the the excellent work Mike....

Funny and Entertaining

[j-burke-2 · 7/10 · 21 June 2008]

I'm not quite sure why everyone is bashing this movie. Did you expect to see an in-depth character study of eastern mysticism or some soul-searching drama that reveals the truth of life? Were you hoping for plot twists and surprise endings? This is movie is exactly what I expected and hoped for. It is filled with juvenile, pubescent humor and had my wife, 10-year old son, and me laughing the whole way through.

The movie is standard Hollywood formula, but they do it to perfection. Mike Meyers was right smack in his comfort zone. Ben Kingsley and Justin Timberlake were fantastically raucous. And Jessica Alba was.... well Jessica Alba was incredibly HOT! I absolutely recommend this movie to anyone wanting a light-hearted, albeit corny trip to the movies. There was a lot of sexual innuendo, but if you are sheltering your children from what awaits them in the real world, you are destined to be a young grandparent.

The Burke's give this movie to thumbs up.

Cinematic suicide

[AntonFokker · 1/10 · 30 May 2015]

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.

The most democratic movie possible: insults everyone

[GLanoue · 1/10 · 12 February 2011]

All I can say is, wow. Is it possible that a once talented showman became so suicidal that he managed to talk people into giving him 60 million dollars so he could make this career-ender? Masochism is a multi-layered thing. This movie is one long puerile penis joke. What was funny in the context of trailer park losers Wayne and Garth twenty years ago has become an insult to the public. Myers is nearly 50 years old, for heaven's sake, and the best he can come up with is two elephants copulating on the ice in game 7 of the Stanley Cup? Are people that venal to star in this POS? I understand Jessica Alba, like who knew it would be this bad, but the others? There's no excuse to compromise other people's careers if Myers has a death wish, which he apparently does. Penis jokes, testicle jokes, scrotum jokes, ass jokes, it's all too much. Not to mention racist, an insult to Indians, to Maple Leaf fans, to short people, to Jessica Alba fans, to everyone. I guess this is also a tribute to the Hollywood system, where Myers' inflated ego on the basis of the Shrek cash cow can actually convince real human beings to give him a gadzillion dollars. I won't even mention the starving Africans and Indians who could have used the money, it's an insult to them. Hell, building a sewage treatment plant with this money would have done humanity a major favour. Didn't anyone have the courage somewhere along the line to tell Myers to reign it in, to hire a decent scriptwriter if he no longer has it, or just perhaps to rest on his Shrek laurels and play golf? What's really disturbing isn't that this isn't funny (most things aren't), but that it's really mean-spirited. The only redeeming features are Justin Timberlake (who knew?) and a Verne Troyer outtake over the credits. The other 89 and a half minutes should be consigned to Heaven's Gate hell, and Myers should apologise to everyone involved.