'Yes Man': Jim Carrey's Big No-No

We like Jim Carrey. We like him because he needs to be liked. If we ignore him, he'll just do what he does anyway -- flap his jaw, hoist his Chiclet teeth over his lips, emit an aria of squeaks and yawps -- and it'll be embarrassing for everyone. So can we like him in his latest movie?

Yyyy . . . no. Even though Carrey is a bit mellower these days, the shtick feels dated. He's doing material from the '90s. In a comedy era ennobled by the crackling wit of Steve Carell and Tina Fey, "Yes Man" comes across as quaint and pitiable, as one-note as Borscht Belt humor and not committed enough to support great slapstick. It's retro in a bad way, like your male friend who keeps wearing those turtleneck sweaters. (Big in the '90s! But we're almost a decade past that, guy.)

This next paragraph, in traditional movie reviews, would be devoted to a spirited recounting of Plot. Since "Yes Man" has no plot, this paragraph will be devoted to Premise, which is all the movie has. What if a sarcastic misanthrope, who has only ever said no to anything, suddenly starts saying yes to everything after sitting through a self-help seminar? Will his life improve by 1,000 percent?

Yes. And that's it. There's no more to "Yes Man" than that. Open yourself up to experiences, and your life will burst into confetti and you will meet and fall in love with Zooey Deschanel, one-half of Hollywood's two-person cartel of raspy-voiced, blue-eyed brunettes who specialize in deadpan (the other being Catherine Keener).

Deschanel earns her paycheck as Carrey's much younger love interest. The age difference between leading man and leading lady is 18 years, but you'd hardly know it from Carrey's meticulously Pantene Pro-V'd mane of chestnut-colored hair.

Clearly, this is a movie that begs for its review to be garnished with snooty parentheticals. Let's back off, then. Let's stay positive, the way "Yes Man" wants us to do. We are open to being moved by thinned-out comedies with platitudinous messages. We are not too jaded for "yes."

Is there a future for Jim Carrey?

Yes. Like Adam Sandler, he can churn out stinker after stinker and still walk away, every time, with $80 million from the pockets of people who should know better.

Is there a future for Jim Carrey and us, the discerning moviegoing public?

Yes. He just needs to take a meeting with Ricky Gervais, or find a really good biopic project like "Man on the Moon," in which he played Andy Kaufman and first proved that he could harness his reckless comic talent in the service of a great movie.

Is there anything good about "Yes Man"?

Yes. Terence Stamp, the lion-faced Brit, plays the self-help guru who converts Carrey into a Yes Man. Stamp nobly sinks his teeth into his one major scene, and for a moment, "Yes Man" feels as if it might be a manic satire of a Dr. Phil world that's desperately scrounging through sound-bite philosophies, looking for the quickest and easiest fit. Instead, the movie flounders, has no way to proceed from its premise, and relies solely on the charisma of a leading man who has lost his way.

For Stamp and Deschanel, and everyone else for that matter, there was only one word they needed to say when their agents passed them this script. You know the word, and sometimes it is worth saying.

Yes Man (104 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG-13 for crude sexual humor, language and brief nudity.