The critics are not being kind to the Love Guru, Mike Myers' new vehicle. Can't say I'm surprised.

Rick Groen gives it one star in the Globe and Mail:

The guru in The Love Guru is Mike Myers, that celebrated hockey fan who, if memory serves, used to be a funny man. So I think this is a comedy. You may think so too, but that will depend on whether, working together in the spirit of good humour, we can find something here, anything, to chuckle about. Since the movie is awfully short (a mere 80-something minutes) and since the plot is as thin as an excuse (guru-solves-star-player's-love-woes-so-team-can-win-again), there isn't much time to spare or, more to the journalistic point, print to waste. Join me, then, in a lively game of Spot the Laugh.

Peter Howell is more charitable in the Toronto Star, giving it 2.5 stars:

Watching Mike Myers' The Love Guru is akin to being locked with a clergyman and a clown in a flaming car hurtling over a cliff.

A collision of the sacred and the profane, this made-in-Toronto comedy of salvation and slap shots leaves you marvelling at its spiritualism while also wondering if Myers will ever tire of phallus and flatulence gags. He really ought to call himself the High Priest of Silliness.

Over at Rotten Tomatoes, only 15 per cent of reviews are positive:

Consensus: The Love Guru features far too many gross-out gags, and too few earned laughs, ranking as one of Mike Myers' poorest outings.

Based on the trailer I saw, I tweeted that "I think Mike Myers' 'The Love Guru' will turn out to be a nasty stink bomb of a film. There, I said it."

I take no pleasure in being validated by the critical reaction.

A big part of the problem is that Myers really only has one big-screen character: Wayne Campbell. There will be many people who will gladly part with $12 or $13 to see yet another take on the persona of that hard-partying 1970s Scarberian headbanger (which I suspect is the persona of Myers himself). Count me out.