The Love Guru: Movie Review
Mike Myers’ The Love Guru is positively awful.
As a movie-goer I would consider this enough of a review that I would be able to move on to bigger things, since it’s entirely true, but I also hold myself to higher standards of writing than that, so I will continue.
Now as simple enough as it is to call The Love Guru awful, it still doesn’t explain the most important part of the review: WHY is The Love Guru awful? In order to understand that we must first understand the film itself. The movie stars Mike Myers as Maurice Pitka, currently the number two self-help guru in the world behind REAL self-help guru, Deepak Chopra. Dreaming of appearing on Oprah, Pitka takes on the biggest job of his career, being tasked with rekindling the romance between Toronto Maple Leafs player Darren Roanoke, (Romany Malco) and his estranged wife, (Meagan Good) currently necking with rival hockey player Jaques “Le Coq” Grande. (Justin Timberlake) As this happens he finds himself falling for the Maple Leafs team owner, Jane Bullard. (Jessica Alba)
The most obvious flaw in the movie is that simply put: It’s not funny. The only moment the film ever got so much as a “Heh” out of me was when I first saw the trailer, there was a one-off gag with Pitka atop what appeared to be a magic carpet of sorts, backing up, and making that distinctive “Beep beep beep” noise that you hear when a truck backs up. That was pretty much it.
The humor from much of the rest of the film derives from countless immature gross-out gags, ranging from disciples of Pitka’s mentor, Guru Tugginmypudha, (Portrayed by Ben Kingsley. Yes. Ben Kingsley who won a Best Actor Oscar in the film Gandhi. THAT Ben Kingsley.) beating each other senselessly with piss-stain mops, and more than one elephant dung joke. (Apparently one just isn’t enough for Myers.)
There’s also heavy reliance of pop-culture references as well. If you’re a fan of Family Guy, which pretty much throws them at you in an endless stream, often forgetting to include a joke in the process, then you may get a few chuckles out of this. I on the other hand, get no such pleasure out of jokes that rely entirely on the viewer’s knowledge of pop culture, and as such couldn’t laugh at Mike Myers playing “9 to 5” on a sitar, or incessantly telling people “Mariska Hargitay” as if it MEANT something. (More like as if it was poised to be the next big Myers film catchphrase. Save for the Shrek series, pretty much all of them have one.)
What was somewhat baffling is the pop-culture referencing went as far back as Myers’ own films. At one point Pitka finds “Bohemian Rhapsody” playing on a radio, turns to the camera as if to give a winking nod, then changes the station. An obvious reference to Wayne’s World, but still not that funny. But when his previous films aren’t being alluded to, jokes are outright copied and pasted from other ones. (I lost count how many midget jokes were made in the film, at the expense of Verne Troyer as Coach Cherkov, that were pretty much cookie cutter copies of jokes played on Verne Troyer as Mini-Me’s expense in Austin Powers. I wasn’t paying attention completely, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if I found that he was re-hashing jokes from even So I Married An Axe Murderer.)
The film also failed to connect the viewer to the plot and characters, and genuinely believe in the action that’s taking place. Walking in to the film for me, it was the impossibility in believing that Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake could be called actors, but later it expanded into the impossibility that anyone could identify with Myers’ Pitka character, (He regularly comes off as rather douchebaggy with every joke made at the expense of another character without any sort of charm.) or even see any sort of scrap of wisdom in him. (With all the ridiculously unwitty musings and puns that Pitka makes, it really seems only the characters in the film are laughing at/with him, while the audience is left with a whisper quiet theater.)
Oh yeah, speaking of puns, if you’re not a fan of puns bring some asprin. There are some truly awful puns and unfunny entendres rampant throughout the film. (Present in the characters of Guru Tugginmypudha, Guru Sachabigknoba, Coach Cherkov, Jaques “Le Coq” Grande, and the not even SLIGHTLY subtle Dick Pants.) I’m beginning to think that any complaints by Hindu activist groups about the film being insensitive to Hindus aren’t quite unfounded, considering that Myers would actually attempt to pass off Tugginmypudha or Sachabigknoba as legit Hindu names.
The film hasn’t done well so far, especially considering all the advertising green that’s been dumped into it, so thankfully there doesn’t seem to be a chance for a sequel. Personally I’m wondering what will become of Myers, who hasn’t done any movies since 2003’s abberation, The Cat In The Hat. (Not counting the Shrek films.) It would make no difference to me if Myers just stopped making films altogether after this one. At least then we’d be spared any more of what Myers thinks is funny, which I’ve pretty much got down to a formula now: Canada, Poop, Midgets, Pop-Culture, Ethnic Stereotypes, and Puns. Which is pretty much all you can expect out of The Love Guru. (HUMOR on the other hand…)
- Mr. Vorhias
Hello, I’m JimPaladin, some of you may remember me from such forums as YouChewPoop, and Newgrounds. I’ll be your new(est) ‘Vidya gaym’ reviewer, and I’m here to talk to you about a very important issue, one that is right up there with “Global Warming” and “Kill all the yiffs!”
Enter Wind Waker Link. As you explore your island home as Link, doing various tasks from sword training to catching pigs, you’ll eventually enter a cut scene where a giant bird flies over the island, carrying a what appears to be a lolicon pirate captain girl. (un)Luckily for the lolicon (Or Tetra, as her name is. Though for those who have beaten Wind Waker you know she also goes by another name, as well.) her crew of incompetent-fuck pirates shoot the bird, causing it to drop her hundreds of feet in the air onto solid ground. She lands on top of a mountain top, and Link, being the adventure-bound little scamp he is, decides to investigate. After you find Tetra (who just happens to land on a tree branch by her belt) and dispatch a few monsters, Tetra’s pirate crew arrives (just in the nick of time to not help you fight those monsters, too!) and as the pirates and Link leave the mountain forest, Link’s sister (Being the wanna-be Link she is) has followed Link up the mountain, as she runs to her brother, as Satan himself would have it, the giant bird swoops back down to the mountain and grabs Link’s sister, in confusion of Tetra.
Gameplay is another somewhat important topic for this game, as the way it is set-up is both a good and bad thing. For the most (or all of) part, Wind Waker’s control scheme and gameplay are the same as Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask (as stated from before) Infact, playing the game pretty much feels JUST like playing the earlier two mentioned. For the 99% most part, every bit of playing the game is just as if you were playing Ocarina of Time, or Majora’s Mask. Which is the same for pretty much every other (one) Zelda game for consoles released so far. The main meat of the gameplay of fighting and puzzle solving, the Temples, aren’t exactly the best in this reviewer’s taste. Though they all make good use of new, and different items (as most temples do) they, at the same time, feel a little bit recycled in ideas and objectives. The bosses also left a lot to be desired. It felt like they could have been much more creative, even fighting them felt like I was fighting previous Zelda game bosses. I will admit, however, fighting Ganon while the room and world around you crumbles under water, gives a pretty kickass feeling. And on a good note for Gameplay, there are lots of little mini-game typed things that are just fun to play over and over.
Remember my Iron Man review? Remember when I said that a Hulk film had previously been made by gay cowboy director Ang Lee? Well, according to critical acclaim, the movie was a critical mess. The critics claimed that the Hulk in this film looked a lot like Shrek, even if the ILM crew worked on the special effects for practically a year.
Plot (5/5): Bruce Banner, after being struck by gamma rays, is on the run from the government. He has taken shelter in Brazil, keeping his identity a secret. One day, he accidentally cuts himself in a soft drink factory, causing his blood to seep into a bottle. After an unfortunate old, American man (played by Stan Lee) drinks the bottle, the government tracks Bruce to Brazil and sends troops in after him, including Emil Blonsky, a special operations expert born in Russia and raised in England. After a chase and battle in the soft drink factory, which ends up with Banner turning into the Hulk and escaping. After the failed mission, Blonsky signs up as a test subject for a “super soldier” formula, created during World War II (a reference to Captain America). And so, he gets it injected into him. Meanwhile, Bruce escapes to Virginia where he meets up with his old friend, Elizabeth Ross (played by Liv Tyler). Little does he know, the military is aware of his location…
Sound (3/5): What dissapointed me was that there was no awesome rock music added into the movie unlike Iron Man, which had us listening to a decent score for most of the movie. However, the redeeming factor of this movie is the sound effects and voices of the Hulk and someone else. The voice of the Hulk was played by Lou Ferringo, from the original Hulk TV series. Nice touch right there.
Overall: This has now become my third favorite film of 2008, other than Iron Man and Indy 4. If you’re a fan of the comics, go see it. If you’re not, see it any way. Why? Those action scenes are so damned great. I would not be surprised if this won at least one Oscar. If not, then a Saturn Award or a Golden Globe. Why? Well, go see this film! If you have kids (Which I doubt none of you do), take them along. Take along anyone you know. Just do it. The Incredible Hulk is one heck of a thrill ride from start to finish that I bet you will enjoy. Until next time, true believers!
