Yes Man

There are many clearly warranted criticisms of this movie: an overly contrived plot, Jim Carrey playing a parody of himself, a somewhat sloppy dialogue at times.  But all this doesn’t keep Yes Man from its three-fold mission: to put butts in seats, to make people laugh, and to leave people with a somewhat inspirational message.  In that order.

Jim Carrey plays Carl Allen, a “No Man,” someone who basically gives a negative answer to everything that comes his way.  Until he meets Nick (John Michael Higgins), an old friend who has become a “Yes Man,” someone who gives a positive answer to pretty much any request he gets, after he goes to a Yes Conference with Terrence Bundley (Terrence Stamp).  He takes Carl along with him to the next one, where Carl makes a covenant with himself to do the same.  It transforms his life in all respects, and we are all along for the ride.

The problem with being along for the ride in this one is something I mentioned above, the contrived plot.  At many turns, there is something very forced that happens to propel the movie along.  There is no great conflict that Carl really encounters until very near the end of the movie, when something equally as contrived as the rest of the film happens to cause said conflict.  Granted, it’s a comedy, almost a farce in my opinion when you take into account all of the ridiculous plot elements, but it’s still wildly contrived – directed by the guy who did Bring It On, though, so what do you really expect (however, it was co-written by the director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so keep that in mind)?