The Love Guru.

"Mike Myers, the star-producer–co-writer of The Love Guru, should seriously consider sending a muffin basket to the makers of Strange Wilderness, because without that hideous, barely-released film, Guru would be the hands-down worst comedy of 2008 so far," writes Alonso Duralde for MSNBC. "A movie endlessly amused with its own stupidity - to the point where Myers actually laughs at his own jokes, and shots of other characters breaking character to giggle are left in, as though this were a Carol Burnett Show sketch - The Love Guru is a soul-draining waste of 90-plus minutes."

"Jessica Alba romps adorably through a goofy Bollywood dance sequence," notes Ella Taylor in the Voice. "Justin Timberlake gives his all to a sing-off with a Céline Dion impersonator. And Ben Kingsley, as a cross-eyed Zen master, hasn't been this funny since he swanned around in that outsized diaper in Gandhi. The rest is disposable."

Updated through 6/20.

"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," warns Brian Lowery in Variety.

The New York Post's Lou Lumenick notes that the first round of reviews in the trades and so forth are "harshly negative" across the board.

At Esquire: Mike Myers's 45 years in 45 sentences.

In the Philadelphia Weekly, Matt Prigge lists "Six films featuring Indian characters played by Western actors."

Updates, 6/19: "The Love Guru Happening," a cartoon by RJ Matson.

PopMatters' Bill Gibron addresses "a one-man campaign" against the movie waged by "self-proclaimed Indo-American leader Rajan Zed.... In the end, Zed shouldn't have bothered. Certainly, The Love Guru gives certain Indian stereotypes a tweaking or two.... Sadly, the only honest snickers will come from anyone who has read Zed's missives over the last few months. This does not defend The Love Guru - it's a god-awful anti-comedy, unfunny in unfathomable, almost heroic ways. But it should teach anyone who wants to openly complain about an upcoming project (and the supposedly negative depiction within) to get their facts straight before starting to complain."

Updates, 6/20: "To say that the movie is not funny is merely to affirm the obvious. The word 'unfunny' surely applies to Mr Myers's obnoxious attempts to find mirth in physical and cultural differences but does not quite capture the strenuous unpleasantness of his performance," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "No, The Love Guru is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again."

Slate's Dana Stevens clears her throat: "There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies so bad they're good (though, strangely, not the reverse). And once in a while there is a movie so bad that it takes you to a place beyond good and evil and abandons you there, shivering and alone."

"[W]atching Myers in this particular guise is almost completely joyless," writes Stephanie Zacharek in Salon. "As an Indian stereotype - or even a faux-Indian stereotype - he's not nearly as funny as the Bollywood-via-Tennessee pharmacist Padma Perkesh, played by Tracey Ullman on her show, State of the Union. Ullman's Perkesh can turn a laundry list of Viagra side effects into a lavish yet compact two-minute musical extravaganza. Myers wastes a good 90 minutes trying to summon a transcendental boner."

"Pee-pee jokes are forever, but The Love Guru is a sign that Mr Myers is close to exhausting his brand," writes Steve Dollar in the New York Sun.

"Myers has made some funny movies, but this film could have been written on toilet walls by callow adolescents," writes Roger Ebert.

"Any time you review a film like this negatively, people ask 'Why can't you just enjoy a few laughs?'" notes James Rocchi at Cinematical. "And I can't give a simple answer to that, but I think it comes down to the fact that I can't just enjoy a few laughs if they're surrounded by a much larger chaotic mass of things that aren't funny."

"It's a pitiful assortment of bad ideas and gags that never work," writes the Boston Globe's Wesley Morris. "I don't know what else to call a movie that asks us to find Jessica Alba credible not only as the owner of the beleaguered Toronto Maple Leafs and a comedian, but as a woman attracted to a vulgar, hirsute Mike Myers. Oh, yes I do: Embarrassing."

"American comedy has wandered in some interesting directions over the last decade, from the irony-free stylings of Will Ferrell to the tender obscenities of the Apatow Empire, but Myers hasn't budged an inch," sighs the New Republic's Christopher Orr.

Indeed, "The Love Guru's prankster garb is cut from the same brash, developmentally stunted cloth as Wayne's World and the Austin Powers series," writes Jan Stuart in the Los Angeles Times. "But by this point, the threads are worse for wear."

"Guru nevertheless represents at least a tiny step up from Austin Powers in Goldmember, if only because it's blissfully short and Myers now has a new, slightly different set of stock bits and running gags to beat into the ground," writes Nathan Rabin at the AV Club.

For Time's Richard Corliss, it's not all that bad: "The Love Guru is a shambling, hit-or-miss thing, like an old Laurel and Hardy two-reeler. And like the situations those comics often got into, this movie is a fine mess."

"Myers knows the simple power of a well-played penis joke, but as a writer he still hasn't figured out how to make characters who aren't just funny variations of himself," writes Paul Schrodt in Slant.

Posted by dwhudson at June 18, 2008 3:46 PM