Yes Man (2008)
Directed by: Peyton Reed
Starring: Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel
Other Actors of Note: Bradley Cooper, John Michael Higgins, Danny Masterson, Terence Stamp
Plot: A guy challenges himself to say "yes" to everything for an entire year.
Time to revisit the ol' abusive spouse again. If you recall from my review of "How To Lose Friends and Alienate People" review I desperately want to like romantic comedies but with the acception of "Garden State", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", and "Shaun of the Dead" I'm hard-pressed to find a post-Julia Roberts/Richard Gere romantic comedy that doesn't make me want to gouge out my eyes with forks.
From what I understand "Yes Man" is based on a book but from what else I understand the only thing that's the same is that they both tell the tale of a guy who decides to only say "Yes." Sounds like the autobiography of Samuel L. Jackson's career to me.
Anyhow this movie is about Carl Allen, a negative jackass that lets life pass him by until he meets up with a former acquaintence who invites him to a self-help seminar where he is convinced into a "covenant" that he must say "yes" to EVERYTHING. When he tries to say no, bad things start to happen to him.
So yes, it sounds a lot like "Liar, Liar."
So yes, it sounds a lot like "Liar, Liar."
Jim Carrey is not so much a man as he is a force of nature. Oh sure you can hate him all you want but just like a hurricane he's gonna keep rushing in year after year and doing his own thing. In this day and age it's hard to remember what a big name Carrey used to be before he became a "serious" actor.
This is what I consider to be a return to form for Carrey, some may say that's a bad thing but I disagree. As much as I've loved "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "The Majestic", "Lemony Snickett's A Series of Unfortunate Events", "Bruce Almighty", "Man on the Moon", and the criminally underrated "The Truman Show" I've wanted a return to the spastic rubberfaced lunatic performance that made movies like "The Mask", "Dumb and Dumber", and "The Cable Guy" as entertaining as they were. And after the fairly mediocre "Fun With Dick and Jane", the double threat of "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" and "Horton Hears a Who", and the horrible "The Number 23" I think everybody else was too.
Carrey looks like he just walked off the set of "Liar, Liar" and decided to do another movie. His performane is the kind you would have expected from any of his 90s comedies, but with the power of an accomplished actor behind them. He has that same spastic and hyper edge but he's toned it down so it's not annoying like it used to be. Carrey keeps the audience constantly entertained and keeps the laughs coming without becoming tedious.
Zooey Deschanel redeems herself for the beyond terrible performance she gave in "The Happening." She still has that deer in the headlights thing going on but she shows the capacity to use other facial expressions and tones of voice as well as emotions and seems less like a soul-less android sent to Earth to enslave humanity.
Not only does Dechanel manage to seem like a human being, she's actually quite charming as Allison, a character that seems to be more than a little bit like Clementine from "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." The fact that she looks like Katy Perry doesn't hurt.
One of the more memorable performances is by Rhys Darby as Carrey's boss Norman. Sure the character is essentially David Brent from "The Office" but to out-Ricky-Gervais Ricky Gervais is qutie a remarkable feat.
"Yes Man" is essentially "Liar, Liar" by way of plot, yes. But the difference is that Jim Carrey is a better actor at this point and the script is 150 times better. Honestly I think this was made as an "adaptation" of the book simply to avoid a lawsuit.
Every moment kept me laughing out loud even if the humor was more than a little sophomoric. What's more the movie manages to be fun even when it finally hits "the wall." If you've ever seen a comedy of this type then you know what the wall is, it's when the movie hits that point where the comedy has been stretched as far as the script writer feels it can be and hits a wall of drama that drags it down until the end of the movie.
The beautiful thing is that "Yes Man" doesn't hit the wall as soon as you expect and when it finally does it does so gracefully. Where most movies spiral downward into a pit of drama and emotion, "Yes Man" decides to fling a bunch more gags on the way down and while it's not as fun as earlier scenes it's more fun then we're used to.
While movies like this are usually hit and miss with the jokes this one seemed to succeed time after time with my personal favorite being when Jim Carrey talks a jumper down from a window ledge by serenading him with "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind whereupon all the onlookers and the jumper break out in song. (It sounds stupid as hell but it had the theater roaring with laughter.)
While "Yes Man" suffers from the romantic comedy formula it seems to try and make the process as painless as possible and be fun even when it's gotten to that serious point. It's a nice comeback for Jim Carrey's comedy performances and a good movie even if it barely counts as an adaptation of the book it's based on.
I give "Yes Man" a 5 out of 5. It's worth it.
This is what I consider to be a return to form for Carrey, some may say that's a bad thing but I disagree. As much as I've loved "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "The Majestic", "Lemony Snickett's A Series of Unfortunate Events", "Bruce Almighty", "Man on the Moon", and the criminally underrated "The Truman Show" I've wanted a return to the spastic rubberfaced lunatic performance that made movies like "The Mask", "Dumb and Dumber", and "The Cable Guy" as entertaining as they were. And after the fairly mediocre "Fun With Dick and Jane", the double threat of "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" and "Horton Hears a Who", and the horrible "The Number 23" I think everybody else was too.
Carrey looks like he just walked off the set of "Liar, Liar" and decided to do another movie. His performane is the kind you would have expected from any of his 90s comedies, but with the power of an accomplished actor behind them. He has that same spastic and hyper edge but he's toned it down so it's not annoying like it used to be. Carrey keeps the audience constantly entertained and keeps the laughs coming without becoming tedious.
Zooey Deschanel redeems herself for the beyond terrible performance she gave in "The Happening." She still has that deer in the headlights thing going on but she shows the capacity to use other facial expressions and tones of voice as well as emotions and seems less like a soul-less android sent to Earth to enslave humanity.
Not only does Dechanel manage to seem like a human being, she's actually quite charming as Allison, a character that seems to be more than a little bit like Clementine from "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." The fact that she looks like Katy Perry doesn't hurt.
One of the more memorable performances is by Rhys Darby as Carrey's boss Norman. Sure the character is essentially David Brent from "The Office" but to out-Ricky-Gervais Ricky Gervais is qutie a remarkable feat.
"Yes Man" is essentially "Liar, Liar" by way of plot, yes. But the difference is that Jim Carrey is a better actor at this point and the script is 150 times better. Honestly I think this was made as an "adaptation" of the book simply to avoid a lawsuit.
Every moment kept me laughing out loud even if the humor was more than a little sophomoric. What's more the movie manages to be fun even when it finally hits "the wall." If you've ever seen a comedy of this type then you know what the wall is, it's when the movie hits that point where the comedy has been stretched as far as the script writer feels it can be and hits a wall of drama that drags it down until the end of the movie.
The beautiful thing is that "Yes Man" doesn't hit the wall as soon as you expect and when it finally does it does so gracefully. Where most movies spiral downward into a pit of drama and emotion, "Yes Man" decides to fling a bunch more gags on the way down and while it's not as fun as earlier scenes it's more fun then we're used to.
While movies like this are usually hit and miss with the jokes this one seemed to succeed time after time with my personal favorite being when Jim Carrey talks a jumper down from a window ledge by serenading him with "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind whereupon all the onlookers and the jumper break out in song. (It sounds stupid as hell but it had the theater roaring with laughter.)
While "Yes Man" suffers from the romantic comedy formula it seems to try and make the process as painless as possible and be fun even when it's gotten to that serious point. It's a nice comeback for Jim Carrey's comedy performances and a good movie even if it barely counts as an adaptation of the book it's based on.
I give "Yes Man" a 5 out of 5. It's worth it.
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