Mike Myers explains why he is “really proud” of ‘The Love Guru’
There was once a time when Mike Myers was ubiquitous, and it’s a period that many fans of comedic cinema look band on fondly. Despite some of his gags ageing poorly, such as the problematic character of Mustafa in the Austin Powers films, Myers has a solid legacy in Hollywood. Outside of the occasional blemish, the highlights of Myers’ career were so impactful that they are hailed as iconic comedic moments, with the pinnacle of this being the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ scene in 1992’s Wayne’s World.
Like many comedians of his generation, Myers first made his name on the long-running comedy show Saturday Night Live. Studio 8H was where he perfected his formula of creating an array of outlandish characters, with one of the stand out’s being Wayne Campbell, the hapless music fan who would give Myers his first successful film in Wayne’s World. The project was such a success that the following year spawned Wayne’s World 2, an equally as loved title that saw Wayne and best friend Garth attempt to organise the music festival, ‘Waynestock’, courtesy of a dream in which he meets Jim Morrison and a naked Native American.
A string of successful movies followed in the 1990s, including the first two entries in the Austin Powers franchise, before Myers lent his voice to one of the most famous animated characters of all time, the swamp-dwelling ogre, Shrek, in 2001. Starring alongside Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz, the Dreamworks film was a tremendous hit, spawning three sequels and a host of other spin-offs. Elsewhere, in the early 2000s, he also gave Hollywood an underrated masterclass as the titular feline in The Cat in the Hat.
Whilst for a time it seemed as if Myers was unstoppable, by the end of the decade, his career had stagnated, with the Austin Powers franchise now exhausted and Dreamworks squeezing every last drop from the Shrek universe. Although he would infrequently crop up in films such as Inglorious Basterds after this period, this lull has widely been attributed to one feature, 2008’s The Love Guru. The project is so derided that it is regarded as the final nail in the coffin of the most successful chapter of Myers’ career.
A rom-com starring Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake alongside Myers, The Love Guru told the story of the fictional Guru Pitka, who is tasked with re-energising the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Plagued by a series of losses and personal problems, Pitka must help the team realise their potential of winning the Stanley Cup in order to reach the heights of the world’s greatest Guru, Deepak Chopra.
The film was such a catastrophic failure that it was almost universally slammed by fans and critics alike, taking home three Razzie Awards, including that of Worst Picture. Ultimately, it symbolised that Myers’ brand of humour had become worn and that he needed to return to the drawing board and come up with something fresh. As the quality of his recent Netflix show The Pentaverate suggests, which is much of the same, this transition is yet to take place.
Despite it being widely slammed, Myers has maintained that he has no regrets about the film and that there are comedic parts of it that he is “really proud of”.
“I just make stuff, and sometimes it does well,” Myers said told GQ in 2014. “But there’s a lot in that movie The Love Guru comedically that I’m really, really proud of. I completely recognise it didn’t meet an audience … I just love making stuff, dude, you know, you can’t be too attached up and you can’t be too attached down.”
