The love guru

THIS new film from Mike Myers is full of ultra-tasteless toilet humour, cheap knob gags and midget jokes, all aimed squarely at the most idiotic film fans out there.

But there was also plenty of stuff that I didn’t like.

Yes, it’s The Love Guru.

Or Austin Powers IV in all but name, charm, wit, style and likeability in general.

This is Myers’ first proper comedy after the admittedly decent The Spy Who Sh*gged Me and Goldmember.

And fans of the Powers films will be pleased to hear that any number of Bond- themed subtitles are also appropriate here.

Including Chunderball. You Only Laugh Twice. The Man With The Olden Puns. And (Kick) The Living Daylights (Out Of The Writers).

Maurice Pitka (Myers) is a spiritual guru desperate to break into the self-help market, so he moves to Canada to take on a high-profile client—the implausibly young and sexy boss of a professional ice hockey team (Jessica Alba).

Her star player’s marriage is on the rocks —his wife has taken up with well-endowed hockey superstar Jacques ‘Le Coq’ Grande (there’s a subtle gag in there if you look hard enough)—and so his game is on the slide.

Pitka has to reunite the couple, while Justin Timberlake—whose comic performance brings new and terrifying depths to the word “guff”—tries to stop him.

The Love Guru does have a couple of laughs in it, hence the couple of stars up there.

But it fails as a comedy thanks to the utter charmlessness of the main character. So let the world unite and beg Myers not to make a sequel or a spin-off, lock Pitka in a box and bury him in the middle of the Mojave desert for all eternity.

This film bombed harder than Nagasaki when it was released in the States last month.

It’s maybe not quite as bad as all that. But it’s still pretty flipping bad.