What might have been the most amusing thing about The Love Guru was what happened prior to the press screening. While the audience got seated and the studio rep made nice with the most recognizable film critics, there was live sitar music and belly-dancers that shook about up and down the aisles. The music was entirely too loud and people had to dodge around the dancers to get to vacant seats. While this scenario alone was highly amusing, the roar of applause that came after the music ceased and the girls put their boobies away was even more bizarre. It was reluctant at first, but clearly social expectations and guilt got to many audience members who then overcompensated, making the entire ordeal unintentionally amusing and somewhat ridiculous. It just seemed to be an example of a marketing meeting gone wrong.

The film itself is equally bizarre, but rarely sparks any sort of amusement (intentional or unintentional) or cohesion. The Love Guru is essentially a cinematic pastiche of all things familiar to the comedy world of Mike Myers and recent pop culture. The sheer inanity and peculiar nature of the on-screen happenings lead one to believe that something of amusement might come about, but it never really does. Instead, the film spouts out a series of jokes about poo, scrotums, doggystyle sex, French-Canadian profanity and copious allusions to fornication, both elephant and human. While this should amuse younger audience members and those who are a little less discerning, it will likely irritate and confuse those with a slightly more refined comic palette.

Pitka (Mike Myers), a North American raised in India by Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley), decides to return to his native land to become the number one guru, surpassing Deepak Chopra. His main course of action involves getting on Oprah’s talk show, until Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, seeks Guru Pitka out to help her with their struggling star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco).

Having recently separated from long-time girlfriend Prudence (Meagan Good), Darren suffers from hand trembles, which interfere with his puck handling. This is only exacerbated by the fact that Prudence is now dating a French-Canadian goalie named Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake), who reportedly earned his nickname by having an enormous hog.

As Pitka attempts to help Darren with his love issues, his agent Dick Pants (John Oliver) attempts to get him onto Oprah’s talkshow, despite the fact that The Love Guru is far more interested in having sex with Jane Bullard.

Despite sequences of Justin Timberlake singing Celine Dion songs and trajectory gags involving the word tabernac, trademarked acronyms and the use of Mariska Hargitay’s (the emmy-winning actress from Law & Order: SVU) name as a greeting and a prayer, nothing comes across as genuinely funny. The only mild amusement comes when Myers candidly points out the joke he was just making matter-of-factly. This is most effective in a scene where he and Romany Malco sit in a crowded bar and Myers makes pooping noises into a coffee mug. When he is done he then states to Malco “I was just making diarrhea noises into this mug”. This is, sadly, as witty as the film gets as it often resorts to jokes that involve celebrity tabloid vagina and boogers.

The juvenile humour isn’t the only problem with The Love Guru, as there are issues with direction and modernity. When songs like Brimful of Asha, Blur’s Song #2 and More Than Words start crowding the soundtrack, it becomes clear that a major barrier within the film is how outdated it is. Back in 1997 when Austin Powers, Brimful of Asha and Song #2 were released, this film probably would have succeeded as a fresh and edgy comedy, however, it is 2008 in a post Judd Apatow and Tina Fey comedy world and The Love Guru just doesn’t fit. It’s a retread of the familiar and old.

Also problematic is Marco Schnabel’s bland point-and-shoot directorial techniques that only gains urgency during hockey montages.

Those excited to see a variation on the Austin Powers franchise may want to check this one out, but everyone else will likely be disappointed, confused and wondering if they really did just see two elephants have sex in a hockey arena.

- Robert Bell