The Love Guru

Mike Myers reportedly spent four-and-a-half years soul-searching and researching Eastern philosophy to develop the character of Pitka, "India’s second most popular guru.” Amazing that so much effort and introspection could have gone into The Love Guru, a soul-crushingly unfunny film that makes So I Married an Axe Murderer look like City Lights. The plot of The Love Guru can be described with two words: penis jokes. There are penis jokes, penis jokes and more penis jokes. Oh, sure, there’s some filler in which Pitka is hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs to help reunite their erratic star player with his wife, who is being wooed by a rival player with, wait for it, a large penis. But mostly it’s penis jokes, many of which, I must admit, would have made me laugh heartily if I were still in second grade. Between the testicular shenanigans, the movie occasionally pauses for jokes involving our old friends farting, nose picking, urination, Vern Troyer and elephant sex. The Love Guru follows the same anything-for-a-laugh style as the Austin Powers franchise but Guru lacks consistent, believable characters to tie all this chaos together. Myers can’t decide whether Pitka is earnest, self-aware or just a very bad vaudevillian in a fake beard. Incidentally, the film attracted a lot of attention for its alleged racist humour; my only comment on the matter is to note that one of the Indian characters is named "Guru Tugginmypudha.” Make of that what you will. The extras on the two-disc DVD are pretty dreary. There are some unremarkable deleted scenes and bloopers, as well as a digital copy of the film, so that you can watch Pitka’s wacky misadventures on your iPod. Almost worth checking out is a puff piece documentary where co-star Jessica Alba keeps a straight face while claiming, "Definitely, it’s a broad comedy, but it has a lot of heart.”