As a major movie star, Mike Myers has been almost invisible of late. Oh, he's been working, chiefly as the lead voice in the popular Shrek trilogy. But he's pretty much taken a rest from live-action.
In his latest comedy, he brings to the screen a refined version of a character he's been developing at comedy clubs over the last two years, one who serves as the protagonist of this spoof of self-help spiritualism and pop New Age wisdom.
Star, co-writer, and co-producer Myers plays Pitka, a self-help guru who courts hockey team owner Jessica Alba and counsels a hockey player whose career is on the skids. (Pitka's belief system is fictional and nondenominational, Myers has been quick to point out off-screen.)
Pitka was left at the gates of an ashram in India as a child and raised by a cross-eyed guru played by Ben Kingsley. Years later, the Guru Pitka moves back to the US to seek fame and fortune in the world of self-help and spirituality, hoping to overtake Deepok Chopra (who makes a cameo appearance) as the world's leading relationship expert.
His unorthodox methods are put to the test when he must settle a rift between a Toronto Maple Leafs player (Romany Malco) and his estranged wife, who is dating a Los Angeles Kings star, the goalie played by Justin Timberlake.
This sends her ex spiraling down into a major slump to the horror of the team's coach, played by Verne ("Mini-Me") Troyer, and owner Alba.
Pitka's job: to reconcile the couple and get the hockey star back on the Stanley Cup track.
Myers indulges two of his off-screen passions, eastern philosophy and hockey, in this hybrid of broad satirical comedy and self-help wisdom. There's a level of originality and creativity here that's refreshing and that must be acknowledged.
But execution is another story: the movie is nothing if not focused. But as comedies go, it's not exactly disciplined.
The director is listed as debuting Marco Schnabel, but one wonders if Myers didn't more or less direct this one himself as an omnibus of sight gags, wordplay, and Bollywood-style musical numbers.
Anyway, whoever is responsible for keeping things moving by filling in the moments between gags really dropped the ball: there's precious little connective tissue between jokes, let alone scenes.
And the rest of the cast -- especially Ben Kingsley and Justin Timberlake, both of whom could and should have contributed much more to the comedic proceedings -- are kept pretty much out of Myers' way, so as not to steal his thunder.
There's a smugness to the project -- as if no one could be bothered to respond the the film's utter lack of narrative momentum -- that makes the numerous dead spots all the more grating. Too often, the film feels less like a plotted fiction and more like a Mike Myers concert. And Myers' unbridled affection for broad, middle-school-level, double-entendre humor gets tired in a hurry.
Come to think of it, The Love Guru plays very much like one of the many lame, shallow, and inconsequential movies to emerge over the years as a result of a character developed on "Saturday Night Live" that didn't merit the feature-film treatment. The stretch marks are showing on this one, too.
So we'll buy a used karma worth 2 stars out of 4 for a comedy (ha ha) about spirituality (ah ha) that chases laughs as it soft-pedals life lessons, and the best feature of which is its merciful brevity.
All that self-love on display throughout The Love Guru will just have to suffice.
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Star, co-writer, and co-producer Myers plays Pitka, a self-help guru who courts hockey team owner Jessica Alba and counsels a hockey player whose career is on the skids. (Pitka's belief system is fictional and nondenominational, Myers has been quick to point out off-screen.)
