“The Love Guru” -- A tiresome string of dirty puns

Mike Myers (“Austin Powers” trilogy) strives for an unclear goal in his latest comedy about an eastern influenced self-help guru. His attempt to make “The Love Guru” endearing to the movie-going public with an unfathomable main character and repackaged excrement jokes is an abysmal failure. The guru isn’t hard to fathom because he is complicated or particularly mysterious but instead a mish-mash of childish behaviors and pop philosophy jargon. His world is populated with agreeable supporters who rarely question his motives or methods, simply staring at him with an awe viewers won‘t share.

Myers is the Guru Pitka, an American who grew up outside the country, raised by eastern philosophers. Pitka has taken his teachings and become a motivational speaker with his own system to help people find themselves. He is hired by Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba; “Good Luck Chuck”) - new owner of the Toronto Maple Leaves - to solve a problem effecting her star hockey player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco; “Baby Mama”). Roanoke’s girlfriend has left him for an adversary, the French-Canadian goalie Jacques Grande, and now Roanoke can’t focus on the playoffs.

The slight bright spot in the movie is the portrayal of the well-endowed hockey stud Grande by pop singer, Justin Timberlake. Timberlake does his best with the role, stretching and contorting both himself and his accent for a few comedic moments. Otherwise, the film is basically humor free. Neither Roanoke nor Pitka are a worthy adversary for Grande, with no witty banter exchanged or fist fights engaged in. Alba is hard to believe as the owner of the team, not exuding any toughness to prove she can handle the position. Her supposed attraction to Pitka is beyond belief and poorly developed in the course of the story.

Myers could not even effectively skewer the Bollywood films he was obviously influenced by in the making of “The Love Guru”. The film simply boils down to an opportunity for Myers to show off his shiny new accent and create a world no one on-screen believes in. This passion project never comes together as anything but a tiresome string of dirty puns.

Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language, some comic violence and drug references.