What can you say about a comedy that literally climaxes with two elephants humping on the Air Canada Centre ice at a crucial moment during a Toronto Maple Leafs' Stanley Cup game? (Yes, I said "Leafs Stanley Cup game")
How about -- great jokes, shame about the plot?
The fact is, there are some very funny and surreal moments in The Love Guru, Mike Myers' latest character-come-to-cinematic-life. Almost all of them are incidental to the story of an American-born ashram-trained self-help guru -- and Deepak Chopra rival -- who's hired to fulfil the potential of the NHL's most hopeless hockey team.
Third-eyes pop into people's foreheads, as erotic reveries turn into Bollywood dance routines.
Narration about the Leafs' first black superstar -- "the Tiger Woods of hockey" -- shows hoops gathering dust on a basketball court as a bunch of gangsta kids play road hockey.
Mike Myers head is creepily placed on a child's body for "flashback" scenes back at the ashram. The guru, who greets people with the Hindi-sounding phrase "Mariska Hargitay" actually meets Mariska Hargitay in a moment with Who's On First overtones.
At times this seems like Myers' most Pythonesque movie, except that the Monty Python gang would have blown up the plot -- or simply have stomped it with a giant foot -- by the third act and filled the rest of the movie with progressively weirder jokes.
When the comedy is short of sublime, it is more often sophomorically silly (and I'll confess right here to a weakness for horrible puns, though your mileage may vary).
If the Hindus who have been protesting this movie -- sight unseen -- are upset by punny Indian names such as Tuggingmypoota, Hairinmykeester or Hasasmallweena, well, I suppose Holy War has been declared.
And let's not forget Justin Timberlake as the, ahem, genetically enhanced L.A. Kings goalie Jacques "Le coq" Grande, who -- without an ounce of Canadian blood in him -- manages to create the most stereotypical "pea souper" character since they cancelled the sitcom Pardon My French. Whatever you think of the ethnic sensibilities involved, "Sexyback" proves here he has a talent for broad comedy.
When The Love Guru gasps for air is when it devotes itself to fulfilling its hack Hollywood obligations -- three acts, a predictable third-act epiphany followed by a race to save the day, Jessica Alba finding our hero irresistible, etc.
Said beautiful woman is the heir to the Leafs' ownership, Jane Bullard (Alba), a devotee of Guru Pitka (Myers), who seeks him out to offer him the motivational job.
There she finds a guy who, Hindu trappings aside, seems not much different from regular North American self-help types such as Anthony Robbins, with his fondness for metaphorical acronyms (GURU stands for "Gee, you are you!" and INTIMACY reads as "Into me, I see.") and fortune-cookie aphorisms ("There's no such thing as failure, only early attempts at success.")
There are times when there's a sense of deja vu to The Love Guru, when the jokes seem, let's say, reincarnated -- as when Verne Troyer (as Leafs Coach Cherkoff ... get it?) gets tossed around in various ways like a ragdoll a la the Austin Powers movies. And, see, Pitka wears a chastity belt -- so "schwing!" is replaced here by "clang!"
Meanwhile, as fine a set-dressing as Alba is, her character barely registers. The same is true for Leafs superstar Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and his ostensibly domineering mother (underplayed by Telma Hopkins of Tony Orlando & Dawn fame).
All in all, let's just call this an early attempt at success, with laughs.
(This film is rated 14-A)
More Movie Reviews
