[Movie Review] THE LOVE GURU
I’ve rewritten, delayed in publishing, deleted and chain-smoked through the writing of this review more than any other I have ever written. And the worst thing is that wasting that much time on a film of this ilk is really kind of embarrassing but there’s a sort of semi-justifiable explanation, you see.
I’m a big Mike Myers fan. Well, at least I am unless this is the standard by which he is going to make all his movies in the future. He was my gateaway into my love of Saturday Night Live (I got into the VH1 syndicated versions of the early 90s just at the moment when Myers was on the rise in the show), I still hold the Wayne’s World movies close to my heart because of the comedic impact they had on me as a young teen plus the fact that they were the first movies I went to see on my own, I still think So I Married an Axe Murderer is one of the most hugely under-rated comedies of the modern age and, what can I say, I’m a sucker for the Austin Powers movies.
So when it came time to write this review I tried my absolute hardest to push for something, anything in this movie to make me the “lone defender” against the critical onslaughter it is receiving. I really wanted to find something within this movie to latch on to (like I did with The Mummy 3 in an overly generous manner!). I couldn’t and that bugged me. Watching The Love Guru kind of hurt me. It was sort of painful. Fuck that, it was agony! I found myself forcing myself to laugh a horrible fake, desperate laugh (the kind that people normally make at get-togethers when someone cracks a joke and it’s painfully unamusing to the point that it kills the atmosphere, so you laugh out of feeling bad for the teller but then people look at you like “What? Are you fucking messed in the head? That wasn’t funny?”) because I was embarrassed for all involved, especially the likes of Romany Malco, Omid Djalili, Steven Colbert and current Daily Show wannabe-breakout-star John Oliver, who (like Myers) who are all very funny individuals who don’t deserve this.
Forget all this shit about there being “just no room” for Myers’ style of comedy “in the age of the Judd Apatow comedy tsunami”. It’s absolute rubbish. There’s room for all forms of comedy in any age as long as it is done well, with integrity, intelligence, originality and commitment - whatever the ’style’ it decides to take. The Apatow style of comedy hasn’t edged out the ‘type’ of movie that Mike Myers makes anymore. It’s simply raised the bar so that we’re now resistant to comedies that don’t have their shit together. And believe me, The Love Guru most certainly does not have its shit together!
I went to an advanced screening of this flick way ahead of its release (that should give you an idea as to how long I’ve been pained by the experience - it’s been out in the UK for two weeks now!) and, you could tell something was up straight away. Normally they’re throwing the freebies at you, barely any opening chitter chat other then to thank you for coming, and then getting the film on so they can get straight to the marketing inanities and Q&As afterwards. This time out, there was an almost twenty minute “explanation” about the poor US response to The Love Guru, how American audiences seem to only focus on “cinematic fads” and that “this is the summer of the comic book movie and not the comedy” (which is obviously news to successful, acclaimed comedies like Step Brothers, Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder) and finally how the movie has a “tone” and “sensibilities” much more in keeping with “European sensibilities”. We were reminded that it took audiences “a little while” to embrace the character of Austin Powers and “look what happened there”. On and on the speech went, until I was actually caught out leaning over to the print journalist to my right and whispering “Christ, how defensive are they being?”.
Every critic seems to pay mention to the fact that (Sir) Ben Kingsley is appearing in this movie and how it is a low step for him. What? Since when did Kingsley become a bastion for “quality” in movies anymore? In the last eight years alone, in amongst the occasional good or great movie, he’s appeared in War, Inc., The Last Legion, Lucky Number Slevin, BloodRayne, A Sound of Thunder, Suspect Zero, Thunderbirds, Tuck Everlasting and What Planet Are You From? Come on now, is his appearance for a pay-cheque in this movie any real surprise to anyone?
The Love Guru has a screenplay that, to call it immature and barely cooked (let alone half-baked), would be almost complimentary. It has a threadbone storyline that serves not to tell a story worthy of your time but only to hang insepid sketches upon and it’s choice of music (Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha? Really?) dates the movie by a good ten years or more before it is even a week old in cinemas. When “celebrity” cameo appearances stretch only as far as Deepak Chopra, Kanye West and Jessica Simpson you know the barometer of ‘excellence’ is not that high.
At one point during the screening I actually got up, left, went and bought a bottle of water, meandered my way back to the auditorium whilst checking out the wall of future release posters and sank back into my seat wishing for the film to hurry up and end. I never leave a film once it has started. Seriously. I am very anal about cinema etiquette - I hate people who talk through the trailers, take toilet breaks, rustle their sweets or leave their mobiles on. The Love Guru turned me into the sort of person I normally hate. But, in my defence, I’m telling you that if you check this movie out against my warnings then at the very moment you hear the line “Get me a crocodile soup and make it snappy!” *, you too will find something bubble up and pop inside of you whereby only the nearest dose of fresh air and time away from the screen will do.
Having witnessed this, and it’s Myers creation all the way, you start to kind of understand why Mike Myers at his best has been when he’s worked from somebody else’s script that he doctored slightly (So I Married An Axe Murderer), worked with a team of solid comedy writers on a threadbone script (Wayne’s World) or seen his script serve only as a spring-board for severe cast improv (the latter two Austin Powers movies).
He’ll bounce back from this. It may well be that he has to pull a fourth Austin Powers movie out to win his fans back or take some small solid hilarious cameos in ensemble movies (like his stellar bit part in Mystery, Alaska) but he’ll come back from this. Just because this is a truly awful movie it doesn’t mean it’s an absolute career killer necessarily. I genuinely think Myers is too strong a comedic talent for that and it’s only out of some beleagured affection for the fun he’s given me in his career so far that I award this one (not entirely deserved) “popcorn”.
NB: I could have mentioned the looks-fantastic-can’t-act-for-shit talents of Jessica Alba. I could have thrown a couple of sentences on the ridiculousness of Justin Timberlake. Or even the utter stale “let’s get him back and fucking abuse him again” appearance of Verne Troy. All those comments exist in many a rejected draft of this review. Life is too short and bandwith too small to spread the focus.
* This, unfortunately, is quite possibly about as funny as the film gets! Which should tell you all you need to know about just how funny it is! Dear God!
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7 Responses to “[Movie Review] THE LOVE GURU”
DAMN, that bad, huh?
I got reviews of Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder that I need to get done
I am SO excited about seeing those two!!!
Yeah, I thought they were both pretty great. Pineapple Express moreso, but Danny McBride was great in both of them.
A mate of mine out in the US says that seeing these movies will have the same impact on me as when I first saw the likes of Dumb & Dumber and Anchorman - a ‘new’ original style of comedy.
I can’t wait.
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