DVD Release Date:  April 7, 2009
Theatrical Release Date:  December 19, 2008
Rating:  PG-13 (crude sexual humor, language and brief nudity)
Genre:  Comedy
Run Time:  104 min.
Director:  Peyton Reed
Actors:  Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Bradley Cooper, John Michael Higgins, Terence Camp, Danny Masterson, Molly Sims, Rhys Darby

After the blockbuster success of Bruce Almighty back in 2003, funnyman Jim Carrey branched out from his rubber-faced, crowd-pleasing persona with varying degrees of success afterward.

While 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind proved that he could play an emotionally challenged loner with aplomb, 2005’s Fun with Dick and Jane and 2007’s The Number 23 didn’t exactly showcase his range with hackneyed scripts that didn’t exactly deliver on multiple levels.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for things to turn around in Hollywood with the right material, and 2008 has been an entirely different chapter in Carrey’s career. After a successful foray into kiddie fare with his distinctive voice in Horton Hears a Who!, longtime fans of the actor’s comedic charms will be ecstatic about the holiday arrival of Yes Man, a flick that’s more of a thinly veiled morality tale like Liar Liar than say, Ace Ventura or Dumb and Dumber.

Make no mistake, though, when I say “thinly veiled,” I mean just that. It’s not provocative, food-for-thought fare like Bruce Almighty or even a funny cautionary tale about dishonesty like Liar Liar. But there is plenty of Carrey’s trademark physical comedy far beyond what’s offered up in the trailer and a serviceable message on how saying “Yes” can open up your heart—and life—to endless possibilities.

Before that major personal transformation is made, however, Carrey’s character Carl is decidedly a “no” guy. Whether he’s invited to an engagement party of his newly engaged best friend Peter (Bradley Cooper) or asked for a business loan at his hum-drum job at the bank, the answer is always the same:  a resounding NO! And when he’s not making up excuses to get out of social niceties, he busies his nights with a couple of Blockbuster rentals and avoiding his ex-wife (Molly Sims) who callously left him for another guy three years before.