Review in a Hurry: Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George decides to do the opposite of everything he usually does, and it works out great? Add 45 minutes or so of extraneous padding, substitute in Jim Carrey and this is what you get.
The Bigger Picture: It isn't hard to see what motivated this movie. Carrey needed a hit, so he went back to the well with what could easily be read as a knockoff of Liar, Liar—an unappealing man suddenly has to start acting completely different than he's used to, and wackiness ensues.
Sadly, Yes Man really misses the point. Comedy comes from human flaws and foibles, and the central conflict in Liar, Liar was that Carrey's character didn't want to change but had to learn to deal. In Yes Man he does want to, and save for a minor early setback, his life becomes totally awesome. If we wanted to watch Jim Carrey living an amazing life, we'd pick up a copy of In Style magazine.
Not to mention that because this is Jim Carrey, it's a little difficult to believe him as Carl Allen, a lonely bank employee who has never been spontaneous in his life. When a happy-go-lucky friend introduces him to self-help guru Terrence (Terence Stamp), he kneels before Zod and makes a pact to say yes to every opportunity that arises.
In short order, this leads to him meeting the scooter-riding Allison (Zooey Deschanel, doing that spontaneous alterna-chick schtick she always does, and yes, she gets to sing here again too). And while the characters may be the perfect opposites-attract match in the movie, the actors don't exactly set the screen ablaze.
There are some genuinely funny moments, mostly when Carrey gets to do the pratfalling he's so good at. But absent any significant conflict, the rest falls every bit as flat as the actor doing a drunk scene. It's a symptom of Carl's loserhood that early on all he does is sit at home and watch movies. So ironically, taking the movie's message to heart and living your life actually means skipping a time waster like this one.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Los Angeles locals may appreciate the way this plays like a Hollywood travelogue, with key scenes taking place at Griffith Park, Elysian Park, Spaceland, the Hollywood Bowl and more, locations which all outshine the actual performances playing out there. And the Eels wrote some songs for the soundtrack, if you're into that.