Twenty minutes in and my hopes were dashed; The Love Guru will likely rank in my top ten list of worst films of 2008. To put it simply, The Love Guru is eighty-five minutes of terribly unfunny, potentially offensive schlock. Guru Pitka (Myers) is poised to be the next Deepak Chopra, taking over five or six shelves at Books-A-Million with a plethora of self-help books brimming with Eastern wisdom and lots and lots of helpful acronyms. He’s rich, he’s pampered, he’s adored the world over…but even though his fame is anchored around teaching others to love themselves, Pitka still has a couple of things standing in the way of his own happiness. One…? A slot on Oprah so he can dethrone Deepak Chopra as America’s favorite elliptical Eastern mysticism self-help factory. Two…? A chastity belt he’s stuck wearing until he finds true love.
As it turns out, the answers to all of Pitka’s problems are in Toronto! Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) inherited the Toronto Maple Leafs from her father and for the first time in decades the team is on the brink of winning the Stanley Cup. There’s only one problem: star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) is unable to focus on the game, after his wife (Meagan Good), got cozy with his rival, Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake). In a panic, Jane calls on Pitka to try to save her star players marriage and her teams shot at a Stanley Cup. I’m sure this is where Mike Myers and crew thought things would get really funny. Instead, the whole story just gets ridiculous.
The sophomoric humor us at an all-time high here; Booger jokes, fart jokes, genitalia gags and short jokes at the expense of Verne Troyer make up ninety percent of the dialogue. The other ten percent of the script is Mike Myers facial expressions–the guy spends so much time mugging for the camera, I couldn’t decide if I felt sorry for him for trying to make something out of such a bad movie, or if I just wanted to slap him.
Mike Myers has shown himself to be a pretty talented guy. I mean he brought us Wayne’s World and one of the best spoof characterizations in recent memory, with the Austin Powers series. Because of that, I can’t for the life of me understand the utter listlessness of The Love Guru. Instead of creating something inventive, Myers, co-writer Graham Gordy and director Marco Schnabel keep hitting the audience ovew and over again with the same toilet humor jokes, in hopes of eliciting a laugh.
The only reason to watch The Love Guru is to revel in the eye popping brilliant sheen that this 1080p, 2.39:1 transfer offers. Almost every shot throughout the movie offers pure high definition eye candy with bright, vibrant colors, excellent depth, and fabulous textures. As a new movie, the print is absolutely pristine Facial detail is excellent in close-up shots, and the scrutiny of the 1080p transfer makes the Guru’s beard look even more fake. Flesh tones appear spot-on, and black levels are true. Softness around the edges of the frame on some shots is noticeable, and there is a lack of sharpness on some medium and long distance objects as well, proving to be the one downside to the transfer. While The Love Guru is a truly awful movie, it looks very nice on Blu-ray.
The Love Guru packs on a lossless Dolby TrueHD track, not that it really matters for a flick sporting sound design this bland. The dialogue is clear but it fails to have any pop. Perhaps that’s fitting for a bad movie like this one.
The Love Guru has some special features as short an uninteresting as the film.
• Mike Myers and the Love Guru – An Inside Look (1080p, 9:35) – The cast and crew discuss the film.
• One Hellava Elephant (1080p, 5:44) – A look at the special effects work that went into some of the film’s elephant scenes.
• Hockey Training for Actors (1080p, 8:03) – Delves into shooting on the ice, the attempt to bring authenticity to the film’s hockey sequences, and Romany Malco’s training to learn how to look like an excellent hockey player.
• Ten deleted and extended scenes and an alternate ending (1080p, 13:46)
• Bloopers (1080p, 3:48)
• Back in the Booth With Trent and Jay (1080p, 5:08) – a series of additional scenes featuring the sports commentators featured in the film.
• Outtakes (1080p, 10:14)
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:31)
• Disc two of this set contains a digital copy of the film for playback on personal computers and select portable video devices.
