Review of “Yes Man”
There are times when I have an interesting story to tell or am particularly fond of a certain joke, and I find myself repeating it to friends and colleagues, refining my delivery perfecting the inflections for greatest effect, until I catch myself doing it and, in doing so, realise that I am in danger of becoming a bore, and that it is time to find some new shtick. I ponder this as I reflect on the career of Jim Carey. It has been nearly fifteen years since the release of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which is plenty of time for anybody to get thoroughly bored with his much-abused cache of facial tics, rubber-faced expressions and comic mannerisms, and while they’ve made him rich, surely he must be as bored as the rest of us.
Which is why I cannot fathom how, after tasting credibility as an actor under Peter Weir in The Truman Show and especially under Michel Gondry in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he is back to plagiarising himself with the redundant whimsy of Yes Man.
In it he plays Carl Allen, a man stomped on by life so many times he wallows in self pity, until convinced to attend a self-help seminar where the speaker (Terrence Stamp) convinces him that he has made a pact with the universe to say ‘yes’ any time a question is asked of him. In doing so, he meets free-spirited Allison (Zooey Deschanel), gets a promotion at work, and it seems his life changes for the better.
The premise for the film is dangerously close to his own previous hit Liar Liar, or perhaps the Farrelly Brothers film Shallow Hal, which is fine if you’ve never seen either of those films, or are unaware that comedy has moved on in the meantime.
Yes Man is the cinematic equivalent of vanilla. You absolutely know what you’re going to get walking in, and while you aren’t disappointed, it’s still vanilla. Jim Carey is as predictably likable as ever, even more so in the moments when he acts and stops being Jim Carey. The screenplay has its share of laughs, most of them recycled (which makes them better for the environment), and of course culminates in a silly and predictable ending where everybody learns a lesson and the studio gets to shell out some big bucks for a completely useless bit of stunt work.
The film does have its moments, especially those involving Kiwi actor Rhys Darby (from Flight of the Conchords), but it was the cinema airconditioning that made me fight the urge to stop wasting my time and walk out.
CK
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