Jim Carrey's wavering 'Yes Man' more of a maybe

Can "Yes Man" possibly be as funny and as poignant and as smart as "Liar Liar"?

No man.

"Liar Liar" remains Carrey's best-made comedy because of its canny balance of the rubbery star's explosive comic outbreaks, a touching personal story and strikingly strong secondary characters.

"Yes Man," directed by Peyton "The Break-Up" Reed, offers lots of Carrey's explosive outbreaks, but they feel jammed into the plot which more or less comes to a halt while the star acts wacky.

The story? Not that touching, although its positive message of being open to life's opportunities certainly resonates with the holiday season.

The other characters? Not that striking. But Zooey Deschanel's semi-goth rocker Allison is fetching, and Rhys Darby's office boss Norman is an amiable Brit who seems to have escaped from an Austin Powers look-alike contest.

Instead of an attorney (and failing father) forced by a magical spell to tell nothing but the truth, here, Carrey plays Carl Allen, a depressed, negative loan officer who turns his life around by uttering one magical word. Yes!

Carl still suffers from breaking up with his girlfriend three years ago. Grumpy and mean, he turns down so many people for loans that had he been running America's financial institutions, there would never have been a mortgage crisis.

His life changes when a friend prods him into coming to a Yes! self-motivation seminar (not to be confused with the recent "Yes we can!" political campaign). There, among a sea of true believers, Carl succumbs to the will of the cultlike leader Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp) who publicly shames him for his inability to be positive and accepting of new experiences. From now on, Carl can only say yes.

Carl thinks the whole movement is a sham, but goes along with it. Magical things start happening.

Saying yes to driving a homeless man into the mountains results in his car running out of gas and stranding him. Bad? Yes, but wait.

Then he meets Allison who happens to be driving by on her motor scooter and offers him a ride. Other happy coincidences abound, and pretty soon Carl has completely transformed from a nattering nabob of negativity into a Renaissance man who learns Korean, flies a plane and plays a piano. He becomes the George Bailey of Los Angeles. No request is too outrageous for a bank loan.

But what happens when Allison discovers that the man she's falling in love with only goes out with her because he has to say "Yes" to everything?

"Yes Man" feels like less of a feature film than a series of humorous set pieces (some very funny) strung together by a clever premise wrapped in a conventional Hollywood comedy.

Some of those pieces seem a little tired. Does Carrey really need a drunk bar scene to unleash the holiday ham within?

At least Carrey makes a passing reference to the 1971 counterculture classic "Billy Jack." That counts for something.

"Yes Man"

Rating: 2½ stars

Starring: Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Terence Stamp, Bradley Cooper, Rhys Darby

Directed by: Peyton Reed

Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG-13 for sexual humor, language, nudity. 104 minutes