"The Love Guru" Movie Reviews: One Of The Worst, Unfunny Movies Of The Year

"The Love Guru", starring Mike Myers's prosthetic nose, Justin Timberlake's washboard abs, and Jessica Alba's breasts, opens Friday. And the critics have been unanimous: this movie sucks! The Love Guru reviews scored an almost inconceivably low 9 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Here's a sample of some of the reviews:

The Love Guru review with the most bite comes from the New York Times:

"The Love Guru" is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again.

And Variety doesn't pull any punches in its "The Love Guru" review:

"The Love Guru" is so relentlessly juvenile as to merit a new twist on the PG-13 rating -- one that strongly cautions not only those under 13 but anyone much above it, too.

The NY Post "Love Guru" review makes fun of Myers himself:

'The Love Guru" is even funnier than "Wayne's World" or "Austin Powers." Not. If this movie were a president, it would be Tedious Roosevelt.

The LA Times Love Guru review calls it "a comedy of low blows and elephantine misfires."

The Hollywood Reporter lays some of the blame at the feet of director Marco Schabel in its "The Love Guru" review:

Oddly, Myers entrusted his first film with a new character to a rookie director, Marco Schnabel, who directed second unit on all three "Austin Powers" films. Schnabel not only lacks visual flair and the ability to pull together a style to link the skits, but he is probably too young and inexperienced to help Myers edit himself. When, say, one in four gags hit with any force, there is a need for serious editing.

For its "The Love Guru" review, the Associated Press blames Myers himself:

In "The Love Guru," Mike Myers must come to love himself before he can love others. From the credits of this scattershot comedy sketch stretched and strained to movie length, Myers clearly loved himself to the point of narcissism going in.

Besides starring, Myers is a producer and co-writer. He's in the cast list four times -- three times for the same character (Guru Pitka, Young Pitka and Teenage Pitka) and for a two-second cameo as himself.

The Chicago Tribune's "The Love Guru" review gets to the heart of the problem:

But we're talking 15 or 20 minutes of decent material. The movie runs a little longer than that.

Newsday ends its its "The Love Guru" review with a Myers-worthy groaner:

Myers' unappealing, potty-mouthed guru should have his own yoga position: The Flop.

PLUS: Read Get Smart movie reviews

Comments

[Pacific231]

As soon as I saw hockey scenes in the trailer, I knew there was no need to watch this movie. The basic plot of a fly on the wall look at the true life of a new age guru who's a total fraud could be made into a good comedy.

I'd suggest the same general plot about a fire-breathing fundy preacher who, oh, I dunno, does hard drugs and has ghey sex on the sly, but that's old hat at this point ;-)

[SlappHappy]

Now that the numbers are out and The Love Guru is officially a box office bomb, is it too much to hope that Mike Myers goes away forever? Or at least for another 5 years?

[lolyla]

This is the first movie I resented before it was released. Mike Myers did some serious gonzo PR prior to the release of this movie. Walking through Annapolis Mall (Westfield Mall) last week, there were huge banner advertisements hanging from the mall ceiling every twenty feet. He supersaturated the talk show and news spots. The PR was so overzealous I felt that it invaded both my leisure time (watching TV) and my personal space (meandering through a mall). Perhaps Myers knew that word-of-mouth would certainly not perpetuate sales from week to week, so money made in the first weekend will likely be the majority of the take. It was a great feeling of schadenfreude that Adam Sandler released his movie with a similar shtick slightly earlier than Myers' film, potentially substantially cutting profits for the film.

Up your game, Mr. Myers, and people will do your advertising for you.

[cruisepuppy7452a]

Big surprise, when you have writers who can't write, don't know real humor, is it any wonder? The last actual funny movie I saw was not American made, it was an indy film, an Irish film that was thier version of Weddings and a Funeral. That was one of the funniest, literally hysterical films I can recall. Americans don't know what real humor is. Its sad, when you think how much money these fools get paid to do a bad movie, for the same amount could hire writers who could do something great. Pathetic.

[IntrepidReader]

Much to my surprise, this film is tanking at the box office. I figured if there were fools out there who have already spent a total of 80,000,000 dollars seeing Adam Sandler's latest stinkbomb, that this one would find an audience as well. I guess even Jessica Alba's impressive superstructure and Justin Timberlake's fine abs aren't enough to save a wretched movie.

[bazokbros]

Besides this movie just not being funny, it's getting badly panned because of Mike Meyers' reported diva boorish behavior off camera. Ye reapeth what thou soweth and I think a few studio heads wanted him to be humbled.

[SlappHappy]

Interesting notion: that maybe they greenlit this piece of trash knowing how bad it was and that Myers would be subject to the intense public scorn and ridicule that has now taken place. No better way to get even!

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

Myers's diva like behaviour has surfaced before. He was originally supposed to do a movie version of his Gunther SNL sketch (the pretentious German performance artist who dresses in black), and had signed a deal with Brian Glazer, but he was taking forever with the script (nearly 2 years), then he reportedly demanded 20 million for starring in it after the Austin Powers film hit it big. Glazer pulled out of it, refusing to renegotiate the contract.

Needless to say, we'll never see Gunther, which is a good thing.

[Knowbetter]

The character's name was "Dieter."

[CanuckforObama]

This movie appears to be so bad it makes me embarrassed to be Canadian. Mike Myers, you are no Peter Sellers.

[SlappHappy]

Actually, Canada looks smart for dumping all of its garbage like Mike Myers, Tom Green, Jim Carrey, Alanis Morrisette, Avril Lavigne, Celine Dion, and all the rest in America and leaving us stuck with them seemingly forever. Hopefully Myers takes the hint this time and moves back to Toronto, where he can sit and rot waiting for the Maple Laughs to win the Stanley Cup.

[CanuckforObama]

Touché! The Maple Laughs actually have an advertisement for the film on their website. I guess they are somehow proud to be linked to this piece of crap. Talk about life imitating art...not that this is art. I remember watching the Austin Powers movies and laughing and yet somehow being disgusted and worried about where all this toilet humor was heading. Now I know.

[InternationalObserver]

There is (IMO) an interesting aside to this ...

For a film to have been so universally panned it must indeed be a turkey. Did no-one at the studio think it was a turkey? Did no-one say to Myers "Sorry, but this film is awful"? Obviously they didn't.

So instead they spent even more money hyping and promoting the film in the hope that they could fool the public into not realising the Emperor has no clothes. I'm betting they knew the word of mouth on this was going to be so bad they had to get everyone to the theatre by opening weekend - because by the following weekend no-one would be going. Or maybe not.

America is, after all, the country that voted for George Bush TWICE!

[RedDogBear]

Huffpo you've got to be kidding. I tried posting a comment with the b word referring to the mammary glands (its right in the beginning of this article) and it got rejected by the "bad words filter"

[Iscarius]

*Lois Griffin voice* Nipples! That's a terrible word!

[Rubyfoo]

Myers needs to rethink his approach. There's a fine line here. Apatow does it pretty well. Myers is way over the line. Lots of really good talent wasted on a disorderly mess.

[staciek]

Myers is a genius, just not in this film. I was really looking forward to seeing the film...but it was beyond dissapointing. Aside from not being funny, it was simply bad and actually embarrassing. I'm sad to report we walked out. I hope he brings it next time!

[RedDogBear]

A genius? Really? "party on garth" "oh behave" that is genius to you? He can be funny but I would hardly call him a genius even on his best days.

[SlappHappy]

A "genius" who constantly resorts to pee pee and poo poo jokes to try and get laughs? I guess the third grade must be full of such budding "geniuses." Gimme a break.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

Myers is not a genius.

He probably thinks he's a genius, though.

[ElvisGump]

I'm never gonna laugh again.

Well, I'm gonna laugh again, just never gonna laugh again the way I laughed with you.

[softwoodslumber]

IMHO MadTV is 10x funnier than SNL. The skits are more surreal, the comics have more range, the ideas arevery creative, It's a better show- SNL has been livin off their past successes for a long time, They made their name when there was no competition and MadTV has been better but under the radar.

Mike Myers was funny in Austen Powers and Wayne's World. Period.
Jim Carey is a modern Jerry Lewis (if u like that kind of humour)
Dana Carvey is funny.
Ben Stiller is very funny (i.e. Dodgeball, Something About Mary, etc)
Adam Sandler is good at toilet humour. Only.
Cosmo Kramer was the best slap-stick comic since Harpo Marx - too bad he'll never be forgiven for his racial rant.
Jimmy Kimmel is a creative , goofy funny guy.
Craig Ferguson is in a class all his own funny.
Sarah Silverman is outrageous funny.
Gilbert Gottfried has a funny schickt.

G. Bush is inadvertantly funny...there shud be a half hr show of his clips once a week - just the highlights...called 'I can't believe I'm really the Prez - as I do such stupid things!"

[littlepuffycloud]

Mike Myers' appearance with Jon Stewart the other night was just awful. More attempts from him at bodily function humor that were really stupid and not funny. Even Jon Stewart and his side kick puppet, Gitmo, could not bail out Myers. Jon was using his fake laugh to try and get through the excrutiating 3-4 minutes of Myers.It was embarrassing and really sort of sad to see a once funny guy become obsolete right in front of my eyes.

[softwoodslumber]

I agree 100% littlepuffy - that was bad - real bad...Myers was out of touch; Stewart had to 'throw him a bone' repeatedly...and it STILL never worked. I think maybe a reason behind it was that Myers had been doing so much media push for his movie and all the while knew it was geting hammered by critic's. As it should be. But he never had such a flop before and seemed stunned that the public doesn't like it. I'd be surprised if he stayed in the limelight for any length of time and will go to ground for a long, long time after this fiasco.

[monkeymuggs]

littlepuffycloud, you hit the nail on the head!
God, it was just uncomfortable watching Myers try to be funny. And those forced laughs from
Jon Stewart to try and help him, I was embarressed just watching it. It proves he really doesn't have much in his repertoire.

[pinkyboo]

Jessica Alba couldn't be convincing in "The Jessica Alba story" Talk about someone who gets hired soeley for her boobs!