FanHouse Mike Myers

For the past couple of months, hockey bloggers have been inundated, neigh, assaulted, by a barrage of pitches leading up to tomorrow's North American release of The Love Guru, the latest vehicle for comic Mike Myers complete with a hockey subplot. But a funny thing happened on the way to opening night.

During the Stanley Cup Finals, the trailer for the movie became rather ubiquitous. Like most of the rest of the FanHouse crew, I was involved in moderating our live chats during the Finals. And every time the spots for the movies would come on screen, the mood of our chat participants turned downright ugly. From the very start, our readers seemed to have the movie tagged as the bomb of the Summer.

Turns out their instincts were right. Here's Dana Stevens of Slate:

There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies so bad they're good (though, strangely, not the reverse). And once in a while there is a movie so bad that it takes you to a place beyond good and evil and abandons you there, shivering and alone.

Guess that's all you need to know. Then again, as I wrote at Mirtle's place yesterday, we had a pretty good idea what was coming when the same publicists who contacted us to pimp the movie didn't bother to invite us to any previews. Talk about telegraphing a punch.

Say, when is that Mike Myers comedy that mixes humor about spiritual self-help with NHL-endorsed hockey hi-jinks supposed to hit theaters?



Ah, thanks. As "The Love Guru" creeps closer to a multiplex near you, reviews have started to filter in from advance test screenings of the film -- in which Myers plays Pitka, a guru who attempts to mend the broken heart of a star player for the Leafs after his wife begins dating L.A. Kings star Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake).

So is the flick any good? Do we have another "Austin Powers" on our hands, or a cinematic hockey atrocity on a "Slap Shot 2" level? Ain't It Cool News offers some muted praise and potential trouble for one of the summer's biggest comedies.

This is the teaser poster for the new Mike Myers comedy "The Love Guru," which is due out this summer. We've been covering its journey to a sticky-floored theater near you here on FanHouse for four reasons:

• 1. There's always the chance that this film will produce an iconic comedic figure like Austin Powers or Wayne Campbell rather than an annoying and then completely forgettable creation like "The Cat in the Hat."
• 2. Jessica Alba is in the film.
• 3. The NHL, and hockey in general, play a central role in the plot.
• 4. Jessica Alba is in the film.

The great Jeremy Smith of CHUD.com provides the details:

The Love Guru is about an American child named Pitka whose upbringing in an Indian ashram prepares him for life as one of those self-help kooks. Pitka's expertise is called upon to help resolve marital discord between Darren Roanoke, the star center of the Toronto Maple Leafs (Romany Malco), and his wife. When Roanoke's wife takes up with Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake), a rival player from the Los Angeles Kings, the Maple Leafs' star falls into a slump. The only way for the Leafs to salvage their season is for Pitka to reunite Roanoke with his wife. I'm already in stitches.

Aw, c'mon. To be fair, Romany Malco was comedy gold as Jay in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." And if Timberlake has an extended music video about giving his lady a phallic gift "In a Penalty Box," we're in business. But more than anything, this film could be the tip of the iceberg for the NHL's takeover of Hollywood. More on that, and a larger "Guru" poster image, after the jump.

The Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup? It's the FANTASY of millions of rabid Leafs fans all over Canada.

Since the Leafs haven't won the cup since 1967, and probably won't win it in the next decade, leave it up to comedian/Leafs fan Mike Myers, of Austin Powers fame, to solve the problem Hollywood style!

Yes, the Leafs will be winning the cup in a movie called The Love Guru ...

"The Love Guru is a Canadian kid who was left in India, raised in an ashram, becomes a guru and has to help a star player of the Toronto Maple Leafs who's gone off the rails, get it together to win the Stanley Cup," said Myers.

Whether he's really being serious is anyone's guess – maybe that's just wishful thinking on his part being a life-long Leafs fan. But, he does have plans for the Cup if he gets it.

"They're so protective of the Cup, they probably won't let me come near it, but I'd take it to Lake Ontario and swim with it."

Only in the movies, folks, only in the movies ...

No matter how good or bad the movie really is, you'd have to think box office sales will be quite high in Toronto.

Now, won't somebody write a TV miniseries about the Canucks scoring on the Power Play?

For a realistic plan for what the Leafs should do, check out Zanstorm's post over at "Waiting for Stanley" (Something which Canucks and Leafs fans will be doing forever)