Sunday 21 December 2008

REVIEW: Yes Man


It seems that Carrey falls back on these high concept broad comedies every four years or so. He makes a couple of films for himself, and then does one of the ones that made him big in the first place. The high-concept PG-13 comedy that features a lot of Carrey Mugging, a lot of Carrey falling and a climax in which he manically chases a loved one to tell them how he really feels. All these are checked off here, in what is a harmless but ultimately shallow comedy that you get the sense Ace Ventura only did to pay the bills.

The story sees Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) grow tired of his lonely and timid existence and with the help of a self-help seminar endeavours to say Yes! to life. That is to say yes to every opportunity that presents itself, no matter how one might not want to. By following this philosophy, he finds his life greatly improves with a more positive outlook and a burgeoning romance with kook Allison (Zooey Deschanel). Its great to see carrey do comedy and seeing as that is becoming rarer, what with Carrey making dramatically respectable films such as Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind and The Majestic, I'll take what I can get. The film was slightly better then I expected, but not by much, it was the formulaic romantic comedy I expected it to be for sure. but the film had a few laughs in it. I enjoyed Terrence Stamp's self-help guru and Zooey Deschanel has more about her then the average disposable love interest usually does. It was also nice to see That 70's show's Danny Masterson getting work, but above all it was a great feeling to see a film in which Jim Carrey made me laugh. Its not great cinema, to be clear, but what it is is a guilty pleasure. Something to consume and then forget about without a further thought. But this film gets a pass from me unlike so many of its type purely because it was a comedy that actually made me laugh now and again and that is an increasingly rare species.

Rating: 6/10

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