John Peters Reviews: “The Love Guru” DVD

The Film:

Sometimes you just know a movie is going to be bad. But the level of bad the movie could be can only be speculated on because, well, you have to see the movie. I got the sense ‘The Love Guru’ was going to be bad mostly because of the unfunny trailer. It just reeked of recycled material. Then there was this internet backlash prior to its release claiming it was horrible, worst movie of the year, a turd, a bomb, and while word on the internet snowballs at times unjustly, other times highly appropriate and for ‘The Love Guru’, they hit the nail on the head. This movie sucks.

I hate using that word in describing a film; it’s too simple to use and it isn’t very analytical, but seriously, this movie sucks. Why does it suck? Let me be the first to use the word in a critical study of why this movie is bad. For starters it commits the mortal sin against the genre of comedy, every genre has that one sin that will automatically make the movie bad, and for comedy its funny, something ‘The Love Guru’ forgot to be. It just isn’t funny. I’m not being an old stick-in-the-mud either, I can laugh at anything. I’m usually the cause of laughter, but I’ll be damned if this film can crack one solid good laugh. I attended this mid-day, so there are less people to catch that domino effect that is laughing. So in order to make a smaller crowd laugh, you got to be, well, funny. Every joke here is certainly an old joke, one’s we’ve seen Myers do numerous times from ‘SNL’ or ‘Austin Powers’. In fact, the film structurally follows the ‘Austin Powers’ formula; they just replaced the James Bond character spoofs, with self-help people. Yawn.

Myers seems game after a five year live-action hiatus, but at times he stops the film and begs for a laugh. Please? No, Michael you can’t have one. Comedy now days relies on potty humor and language, perhaps perfected by Judd Apatow, but Myers copies and amps up all of it, to boring results. The jokes seem stale, as if your co-worker tried to tell a joke and failed. We expect more from Myers; he gave us a lot of catch phrases, memorable skits on ‘SNL’, and even a comedy franchise, but in the end you must grow and Myers is certainly stuck in neutral. The jokes are so unfunny, the suck laughter out of you. There’s my definition of suck in describing a movie. A movie sucks therefore it takes something forcefully out of you. For 88 minutes we are being unable to commit to the simple act of laughing and by the time we walk out we are wondering what that feeling was and if we can do it again. In the film, the Guru puts trademarks on phrases, so let me do one: D.U.M.B., TM. D is for directionless, U is for unfunny, M is for mind-numbing, and B is for bad, trademark. Please avoid the worst film of 2008. If tempted, remember D.U.M.B.

The DVD:

Audio/Video:Despite the colors being vivid, the overall picture is rather soft, even for a standard definition DVD. The black levels are sharp too, but there’s some rather blurriness in the fineness of the image. The Dolby Digital is fine for a comedy. There’s some rumble in the bass in some scenes and of course, the dialogue is nice and clear, just don’t expect a lot of surround activity, because there’s little to none.
Mike Myers and the Love Guru: This 10-minute interview just has Myers talking about the character and whatnot. More Myers goofiness and not memorable about this piece

One Hellava Elephant: This short feature talks about the work with the elephant in the film, which isn’t a bad little thing to watch.

Hockey Training for Actors: A quick look at what the actor needed to do for the hockey scenes in the film, since Myers is a huge hockey fan.

Deleted Scenes: I bag on deleted scenes now days because mostly they have become a waste of space. If they’re good scenes, there’s usually an extended cut of the film made or they should be left unseen. Comedies on the other hand go through a trial and error stage, so I’m curious to see them. About 13 minutes on ‘Love Guru’ were deleted and these are okay. If the film is as unfunny as I said, imagine the deleted scenes. A for effort.

Outtakes: funnier than the deleted scenes.

Back in the Booth with Jay and Trent: About five minutes of the annoying sportscasters from the film goofing off some more.

Digital Copy, trailers, and a Gag Reel round out the 2-disc Special Edition.

I really disliked the film for being the opposite of funny, which isn’t good if you’re a comedy fan. Avoid the film. If you’re interested still, the DVD is fine, but the extras really aren’t worth the price spike 2-discers are going for now days.