No Love for The Love Guru

When I first saw the previews for Mike Myers' The Love Guru, one thing was immediately clear: the one-time heir apparent to the comedy throne has been unseated in his five-year hiatus from live-action comedy. Waynes's World was gold.The Austin Powers movies were hilarious. The first two Shrek movies were fun. Hell, I'm one of the few people who regularly quotes So I Married an Axe Murderer ("Head! Move!"). I'm among the five people who own a copy of Wayne's World 2 on DVD. Granted, it came packaged with the first one. Nevertheless, I'm a fan of the man's work...aside from The Cat and the Hat, but I won't go into that one. I'm not sure how many pro-life readers I have, so I find it inappropriate to write about cinematic abortions.

Not that The Love Guru looks much better. From the brief clips I've seen, Myers' character Guru Pitka is a warmed-over Austin Powers with a cringe-inducing (and near-offensive) Indian makeover. And he's brought Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) back with him, to ensure that we'll get a healthy dose of midget humor (haha, he's tiny!) to go along with the dick, piss and fart jokes. Mind you, a great dick joke goes a long way, but from what I saw in the trailer, the ones in The Love Guru are a bit flaccid. Yep. Went there.

My point is, if I have one, is that these once-great comedic actors, such as Myers and Adam Sandler (star of another summer '08 dud, You Don't Mess with the Zohan) need to try harder. A dick joke ("nut sack." Get it? "Nut." "Sack.") is just a dick joke, but in the hands (the joke, not the dick) of someone like Judd Apatow, it can be something fresh and new. But, much like his most beloved character Austin Powers, it seems like Myers' sense of humor was cryogenically frozen long ago. Can someone please thaw it out?

Oh, and if you are thinking of seeing this dreck, please peruse The Love Guru's Rotten Tomatoes page. As of this writing, it's at 10 percent and quite rotten. This says a lot. Moviegoers, consider yourselves warned.