The ability to satirise the pseudoscientific multi-billion dollar self-help industry as well as the hugely popular sport of ice hockey could have been a winner.

Hell, Blades of Glory made people care about ice dancing for 90 minutes, so it should have been easy.

Instead, what has been delivered is joke after joke about penises, the size of Myers' co-star Verne Troyer (Mini Me from the Austin Powers films) and character names which a five-year-old would have been embarrassed to have made up (Guru Satchabigknoba, Guru Tugginmypudha).

I'm not a humourless person, and I thoroughly enjoyed much of Myers' earlier work (Wayne's World, the first two Austin Powers films), however this movie was not original, clever or funny like those.

Recycling jokes, some of which were first heard 30 years ago on the school playground, sets a pretty low bar and The Love Guru doesn't rise above it. Not for a second.

It's hard to know quite what went wrong, because there are so few redeeming features.

Jessica Alba, as the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, failed to add anything to the film, and although she may not be a terrible actress, there's nothing in her performance to suggest she can do comedy.

But perhaps the worst part of the film (apart from Myers himself) was Ben Kingsley as Guru Tugginmypudha. Yes, the same Ben Kingsley who won an Oscar for Ghandi and simply outstanding as Don Logan in Sexy Beast.

A cross-eyed guru who pees in a pot, farts and speaks in a terrible accent? Seriously Ben, is that what your career has come to? Simply unbelievable.

The only parts which raised a titter were when either Justin Timberlake (as Jacques 'Le Coq' Grande) or Stephen Colbert (as doped-up commentator Jay Kell) were on screen, but they were hardly the gut laughs which you can expect from intelligent comedies.

The occasional sight-gag also raised a smile, but inevitably they were drowned out by the sheer number of dick jokes that it's hard to recall anything but the latter.

As can be expected from a Myers film, there were some cameo appearances from celebrity friends - but without giving them all away they were hardly A-list stars at the top of their career.

By the time Deepak Chopra himself appeared on screen, I was just glad I had finished my popcorn or it may have been thrown at the screen.

In fact, the film reminded me somewhat of Chopra's spirituality and new-age stuff he serves up in his books ? banal, unoriginal and hard to swallow.

The film can be summarised by borrowing one of the over-used "jokes" from the film ? the endless acronyms thrown at the gasping crowd sitting cross-legged in front of Pitka.

The Love Guru is:

S - elf
H - elp
I - nterminable
T - waddle (TM)

Unfortunately you need to have seen the film to truly get how awful the joke is, so I'm hoping that most of you are left somewhat in the dark.

I'm pleading with you, don't go and see The Love Guru. Even if you are Mike Myers' biggest fan. - you'll wish you had 80-odd minutes of your life back.

Go and see The Dark Knight instead.