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Love Guru: Special Edition (The)
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (29th September 2008). |
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The Film
 After seeing the previews for Mike Myers’ “The Love Guru”, I faced a serious emotional crisis: was my childhood love of Mike Myers’ career totally off course or had he just taken a serious turn for bad with the ridiculously bad film? Luckily before I got “The Love Guru” to review, I had re-watched “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (1997) and both “Wayne’s World” (1992 & 1993) movies, thankfully confirming that yes, these movies were hilarious and yes, “The Love Guru” is an incredibly unfunny turn in Mike Myers' career. “The Love Guru” follows Toronto Maple Leafs star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) whose incredibly playing ability and confidence has suddenly been shattered after leaving his wife Prudence (Meagan Good) who has now started dating rival player Jaques ‘Le Coq’ Grandé (Justin Timberlake). Now that the Maple Leafs are in the Stanley Cup finals, Owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) brings in famed Guru Maurice Pitka (Mike Myers) to fix Roanoke’s relationship problems by reuniting him with his wife, or at least making him good enough to win the cup. Pitka of course has found himself in love with Bullard and in a rush to reunite Roanoke with his wife so that he can finally out-perform Depak Chopra and become the world’s number one guru. There’s not a lot to say about the film itself, of course the writing is terrible and there’s no real point in looking at the directing of Mike Schnabnel since it’s mostly just in service of following Myers around while he tries to say and do funny things. Unfortunately there’s nothing really funny about anything Myers says or does in the movie, his sight gags just seem thrown in and largely just to make the movie a full running time while he laughs at nearly every joke he makes as a part of the character, making the jokes seem even worse. This doesn’t mean that the film is completely devoid of comedy, Stephen Colbert’s incredibly brief cameo as a broadcaster brings on the only laughs in the film, but you’re better off just trying to find these scenes online rather than sit through the entire movie. There’s also a good amount of Bollywood jokes within the movie, but if anything Bollywood has enough humor in its own right that it’s going to take a lot to really make a good parody of it, which Myers doesn’t really do. With almost all of the jokes falling flat, it’s hard to really blame the actors rather than just focusing on the fairly unfunny script. Romany Malco has potential to be a funny actor, his part in “40 Year Old Virgin” (2005) shows that, but in “The Love Guru” he’s just a side player to some bad writing. The same goes for John Oliver, who makes some hilarious segments on “The Daily Show” (1996-Present) but as Guru Pitkas’ business manager in this film he’s just not very funny. Of course Jessica Alba’s role in the film isn’t much beside being the attractive love interest and she doesn’t really do much more, so I guess she did a good job since she just played the part. Very disappointing is Justin Timberlake as Le Coq, ruining most of the respect I gained for him in “Southland Tales” (2006). Overall, “The Love Guru” is simply a badly put together comedy that isn’t worth watching (with the exception of Colbert’s 5 minutes of screen time). It’s worrisome in its ability to make you question the comedy of his earlier work, but don’t worry, “Wayne’s World” is still hilarious. No amount of “The Love Guru’s” can change that. All it can change is Myers' ability to really bring my attention to a movie in any other way than a sad reminder of how funny he was and how far comedy can fall.
Video
Presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio the transfer of “The Love Guru” is fine for what it is, the ideo is fairly clear with some hints of grain. The colors that Myers uses are more in line with Bollywood productions with lots of bright colors that actually pop and keep the film from being just visually bland, but nothing is really done with the camera.
Audio
There ate soundtracks in English, French or Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, the 5.1 track is technically good, the levels are nice and there’s no real breakdown in the audio quality. There’s some sitar covers of pop songs that are interesting to listen to, though are played up a little more than they should be. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are also included.
Extras
The 2-disc 'Special Edition' set comes with a handful of special features, though is another example of a set that just comes with a digital copy rather than a large amount of special features, here’s a short rundown of the featurettes, deleted scenes, outtakes, bloopers, and theatrical trailers included in the set. DISC ONE: “Mike Myers and The Love Guru – An Inside Look” runs for 9 minutes and 37 seconds. This featurette is all about promoting Mike Myers and "The Love Guru" in some behind-the-scenes looks and some cast and crew interviews. Everyone talks about how funny the movie is, though when Alba talks about the romance that’s supposedly in the movie it leaves me a little confused. “One Helluva Elephant” runs for 5 minutes and 46 seconds, this is a short featurette that’s mostly an interview with the production designer as he talks about building a big animatronic half of an elephant. Actually a cool special feature, but I have a bit of an obsession with prop and production design so it was really enjoyable for me to watch. “Hockey Training for Actors” runs for 8 minutes and 4 seconds. Mark Ellis talks about training the actors how to skate and play a hockey in this short featurette. A good amount of behind the scenes training footage is used, along with some on set training interviews with Romany Malco with some on set antics from Malco. Not a bad featurette, but none too interesting, even though Malco is far funnier on set than he was in the film. Next are the deleted and extended scenes, 11 in total: - “Jane’s Office / Grande Interview #1” runs for 1 minute and 18 seconds, this extended scene features Jane and Punch talking in her office about Roanoakes on ice impotence with an extended conversation with Le Coq. - “Cherkov on Ice” runs for 32 seconds, a digital shot of Cherkov skating up to Roanoke. - “Darren’s Performance Anxiety” runs for 1 minute and 19 seconds, Roanoke discovers he’s having trouble in bed as well as on the ice because of thinking about his wife being with Grande. - “Stink Mop” runs for 3 minutes and 4 seconds, this is an extended version of the mop fighting flashback scene. - “Happy Pack” runs for 35 seconds, Roanoke and Pitka talk about his relationships with his wife and mother. - “More Fun at the Old Log Inn” runs for 2 minutes and 16 seconds, Pitka regresses Roanoke with immature acts at a bar before the barfight scene. - “Grande Interview #2” runs for 45 seconds, Roanoke sees another TV interview with Jacques Grande where he talks up his relationship with Prudence. - “Bill Ford with Very Special guests” runs for 45 seconds, Bill Ford interviews Mike Myers (as himself) who brought Kanye West with him to the hockey game, and worries about what Kanye will say when interviewed. Actually a funny scene that would have helped. - “Nuts” runs for 36 seconds, Samantha Bee cameos as a Cinnabon worker who gives Pitka the choice of nuts or no nuts on his cinnabon. - “Cabbie Fight” runs for 1 minute and 43 seconds, Pitka bumps into a cabbie who represents an opposing guru’s school of thought and the two duke it out. - “Alternate Ending” runs for 40 seconds, Pitka and Bullard make love rather than the musical ending. Bloopers runs for 3 minutes and 50 seconds. People flub up lines, improve on set and things don’t quite work out as intended on set, leading for lots of on set laughter. “Back in the booth with Trent and Jay” footage runs for 5 minutes and 9 seconds, is a collection of scenes that weren’t used of Colbert’s hilarious run as the hockey commentator. This 5 minute bit is really funny and worth checking out, though not funny enough to get the DVD for. Outtakes & more reel runs for 10 minutes and 15 seconds is an amalgamation of different unused improvisations from all the different scenes in the movie. Good if you want to see all the alternate lines, but not many are really much funnier than what was used in the film. Also included is the theatrical trailer for “The Love Guru” which runs for 2 minutes and 32 seconds. The bonus trailers included on the disc are: - “The Foot Fist Way” runs for 1 minute and 48 seconds. - “Eagle Eye” runs for 2 minutes and 34 seconds. - “Iron Man” runs for 2 minutes and 24 seconds. - “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” runs for 1 minute and 54 seconds. - “Without a Paddle: Nature’s Calling” runs for 55 seconds. DISC TWO: Is simply the Digital copy of the film.
Overall
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