This ‘Love’ has taken its toll

‘The Love Guru’
Director: Marco Schnabel
Cast: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Romany Malco
Rating: PG-13
Grade: 1 Globe

REVIEW. An offensively unfunny movie, “Guru” behaves like a sequel to one of Mike Myers’ well-loved franchises, relying on affection for the character — or more accurately, for Myers’ mugging portrayal of the character — rather than anything that qualifies as comedy.

The “SNL” alum could get by on this in “Wayne’s World 2” and the later “Austin Powers” flicks because their predecessors had earned the audience’s good will. He can’t do that here because there is no forerunner to draft behind.

Myers relies instead on his own charm, believing like a deluded narcissist in its ability to lift the film above the lack of effort he and everyone involved appear to have put into it. Perhaps this would work if Myers had not misplaced said charm somewhere on the set of “The Cat in the Hat.”

For what it’s worth (and it’s not really worth anything at all), “Guru” is about an American-born “neo-Eastern” holy man who must reunite a hockey star (Romany Malco) with his wife in order to win the heart of the team owner (Jessica Alba, who deserves an award for surviving this long in Hollywood despite having a black hole where her talent should be) and a guest spot on “Oprah.” Things proceed predictably, but at a strange clip. Director Marco Schnabel never finds a rhythm, largely because Myers and Graham Gordy have handed him a dead possum of a script, loaded with flat poop jokes (the jokes are flat, not the poop) and little else.

The material is so unfunny that someone decided to have all the supporting players laugh whenever anything comes out of Myers’ mouth — presumably because no one else will. If this is the kind of mediocre crap Myers does with a new idea, let him go make more “Austin Powers” sequels.