The Love Guru (2008)

It has been a very long time since I had last seen the Canadian comedy legend and former Saturday Night Live Alum Mike Myers (So I Married An Ax Murderer) in a film. Mike has wowed us with how great he has been in various film franchises like Wayne's World, Shrek, and Austin Powers, but for today I had to explore 2008's The Love Guru which written by Myers and directed by Marco Schnabel (Austin Powers In Goldmember). The film stars Myers as Pitka, an American that was raised by gurus outside of the country. Pitka decides that it's time to return to the states to cash in on the self help guru craze so he gets involved with a hockey team to try and give confidence back to it's star player. The film also stars Jessica Alba (The Fantastic Four) as Jane Bullard, Justin Timberlake (Alpha Dog) as Jacques Grande, Verne Troyer (Bubble Boy) as Coach Punch Cherkov, Manu Narayan (The Last Airbender) as Rajneesh, John Oliver (The Lion King) as Dick Pants, Stephen Colbert as Jay Kell, Jim Gaffigan (The Jim Gaffigan Show) as Trent Lueders, Ben Kingsley (Iron Man 3) as Guru Tugginmypudha, Rob Huebel (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World) as Frat Guy, Daniel Tosh (Tosh.O) as Cowboy Hat, Meagan Good (Think Like A Man) as Prudence Roanoke, and Romany Malco (Top 5) as Darren Roanoke.

One thing that I am going to say right off the bat is that Justin Timberlake was the best part of this whole entire film. Justin is a renaissance man who can literally do it all as he has entertained us on the small screen, big screen, and of course on stages all over the world. He was a solid choice to play the rival hockey player who steals the star players wife and he was so funny. It was almost as if Mike Myers gave him all the funny lines and left none for himself in this film. I am not saying that the whole entire film was terrible because there were some funny scenes throughout, but Myers definitely laid an egg with this one as a lot of the comedy just felt forced and some of it was too stupid. I think a character like Pitka would have been better reserved for the Austin Powers series if you toned him down a bit and actually made him funny, but to try and capitalize on the self help craze was what he tried to do and it failed. I don't really have much more to say about the film other than it had some cool cinematography, but not enough to save this one. The film is currently available to stream for free on Tubi so check it out if you dare. I am going to give this one an D+ for a final grade because Timberlake keeps it from being an F.