Yes Man Review

Jim Carrey is a pretty decent straight actor. Watch Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind or The Truman Show and you might agree that it wasn't just novelty value that secured the Ace Ventura: Pet Detective star his brace of Golden Globes.

How sad then, that whenever he returns to his home turf, Carrey makes no effort to exploit his ability to underplay. It's as if he hears the word 'comedy' and immediately begins salivating over the funny faces he'll be able to pull and the number of times he'll be able to fall over.

Very loosely based on Danny Wallace's bestseller, Yes Man finds Carrey back to his excruciating worst as Carl Allen, a spaniel-eyed shlub whose only ambition is to block out memories of his divorce by staying home and watching DVDs. As for his working life, Carl's position as a loan approver enables him to say 'no' to hundreds of people on a daily basis. Yes, Carl has resigned himself to a life of dull austerity. Then he encounters old friend Nick (a cameoing John Michael Higgins) who's had his world turned upside down by lifestyle guru Terrence Bundley (Stamp).

Bundley's recipe for a fulfilling life? Say 'yes' to everything. So our cynical hero finds himself bungee jumping, going clubbing, learning Korean and - would you credit it? - he starts enjoying things a little more. He even meets a girl, 'jogography' devotee and rock singer Alison (Deschanel, perhaps doing penance for The Happening). But then she has to go and ask him to move in with her and all the old negativity spills out of Carl the way sick nearly spilt out of your critic. If you haven't read Wallace's book, it's a pleasant enough piece of fluff about approaching daily life with a little less fear. It certainly isn't an easily adaptable self-help manual. To capture the spirit of the book, you'd have to find some fresh-faced youth, persuade them to apply a new positive way of thinking to day-to-day life and then document the outcome. This might sound a risky premise for a feature film, but any amount of risk would be preferable to this, a picture which when it isn't being desperately unfunny is safe, conservative, pretty much everything it insists the protagonist - and by extension, we the audience - shouldn't be.

Carrey, meanwhile, falls back on shtick that's as old as he is. It might have something to do with all that gurning, but the rubber-faced one seems to have lost some of his elasticity. Because of this, the scenes in which he makes out with Zooey Deschanel assume a truly disquieting dimension, what with her looking about 18 and him looking all of his 48 years.

A less familiar and therefore far more welcome presence is Kiwi Rhys Darby (aka Murray from 'The Flight Of The Conchords') who takes on the role of Carl's hapless boss Norman. An affable figure in an unlikeable film, it's far easier to root for Norm ("It's my nickname") than the unsympathetic Carl. And if a grown man dressing up as Ron Weasley and 300's Leonidas are cheap gags, they're worth every penny in this, a comedy film where the funny seems to have fallen off the lorry on the way to the studio.

Put bluntly, don't be afraid to say 'no' to Yes Man.