This is the third entry in Jim Carrey’s Trilogy of Generic Ethical
Comedies, after Liar Liar and Fun with Dick & Jane,
and if it is at all possible, Yes Man far out-blands the others.
Here is the premise, loosely based on a memoir with the same name:
Carrey’s character decides, with the nudging of a self-help guru played
by a slumming Terence Stamp (who provides the only 15 seconds of the
film actually worth watching), that he will say yes to everything. So
he binge drinks, takes flying lessons, responds to spam about penile
enhancement, and gets a blowjob from a toothless old lady. This dilemma
completely lacks drama. Carrey could say no whenever he wants to and
thereby resolve the situation, he just chooses not to. All the
perfunctory plot elements get trotted out, and the ending happens when
it should. Everything’s so apathetic that the movie feels like a shrug,
and even Flight of the Conchords‘ Rhys Darby, phoning in a sad
Ricky Gervais impersonation, can’t get a laugh out of this dreck.
It doesn’t help that Carrey is experiencing the Robin Williams
Effect in full force: His sense of humor has been cuddlied up and
plasticized to the point where the sight of him invokes a weird
melancholia. He’s become a too-tan creep, like those guys back in the
mid-’90s who used to do unfunny Jim Carrey impersonations when they got
drunk at parties. And pairing him with Zooey Deschanel (as the world’s
most adorablest hipster art-tard who isn’t currently a character in a
Michel Gondry film) is a tragic mistake. Deschanel seems genuine and
flirty; Carrey seems phony, tired, and about 20 years too old for her.
But even Carrey’s intrinsic creepiness shouldn’t be notable enough to
inspire anyone to watch this movie. Like drunken sex, it just happens
to you, and then you forget about it. 
Terence Stamp has been slumming it for years now. Loved him in The Limey, but the years since haven’t been as kind. The nadir? Last year’s little-seen Mormon massacre docudrama September Dawn, in which he plays Utah governor Brigham Young–with full-on British accent.
Seems a tad harsh on ol’ Jim. The movie is everything it claims to be, unless it claims to be anything more than a little 2-hour time-waster that’s just one of those guilty little pleasures you’ll Netflix three months from now. Not worth the theater trip, but give the guy a break, it looks to be a little family film with somewhat of an interesting premise to it. Perhaps made worse by the fact that he’s totally in control of his answers, but still, it aims in middle ground, and for that, Carrey should be content. Not proud, but content. So his big days are over, so what? Let the guy relax a little. Films like these are the movie equivalent of relaxing in a jaccuzzi- You don’t do it day-in, day-out, but every now and again it’s fun to slip out of your brain for a little while and just roll with it.
I just what to see this