The Love Guru

Mike Myers is back on the silver screen this summer, mining pop culture's past for more '60s related pastiche. Only this time he's swapped out the sex obsessed spy for a sex obsessed Swami in The Love Guru. But does the Guru's mobile game tie-in take you to heaven and back, or is it less alluring than a side of cold lentils?

Critics suggest the movie's rather lightweight, and the game certainly doesn't get stuck in with size 10 sandals. The idea is that you train in D.R.A.M.A., the five central tenets of the Guru's Tugginmypudha (yes, really...) sect.

D.R.A.M.A. stands for Distract, Regress, Adjust, Maturity, and Action and each of these has been transmogrified into a simple mini-game. Mastery of all the games unlocks a bonus game, but presumably also sends you out into the world as a bonafide love god. If only it were that simple in real life...

Each of the events is straightforward enough, comprising short and snappy party games ladled with Myers's trademark humour. You get to ride an elephant in the Distract discipline, pressing buttons to see how long you can perch on the pachyderm's back as it barrels through the jungle.

Regress sees you puzzling over tea pouring, where the objective is to use different pieces of pipe to connect up the Guru's nostrils inside a time limit. When you think the connection's made, you twirl the taps and watch the tea flood from one nostril to another.

Mastering Maturity sees you tossing coins at targets, while engaging in a vigorous bout of Stink Mop covers the Action discipline. This rudimentary fighting game sees you pitted against another wannabee guru, only the wooden staves of the fighting caste are replaced with... stinky mops.

Only one of the events attempts any kind of innovation. Nuts-in-a-Sling is a recipe game, which has you solving sums to stir the pot, then whacking nuts with a hammer, before chopping curly fries out of potatoes by pressing buttons on your keypad in the correct sequence.

Apparently, this helps you towards mastery of 'Adjust'. Whatever that is. Successful completion of the dish results in a gherkin standing proud betwixt two balls of curly fries, loosely resembling a set of male genitalia. Yum.

You'll have gathered by now that the humour levels are set somewhere below frat boy classic Porky's and just above the graffiti that gets daubed on school toilet walls.

In fairness, Nuts-in-a-Sling is reasonably fun to play, as is, bizarrely, the coin toss. Getting the timing and the angle right is curiously satisfying, much like potting a ball in a game of pool.

But the reality is that The Love Guru is thinner than a fasting Swami. It's far more of a promotional tool than it is a piece of entertainment that's going to keep your fingers twitching or capture your interest for anything more than a few minutes. In some respects we should be thankful. Judging by its reviews, a few minutes of interest is far more than audiences can expect from the movie itself.