A mood-lightener but not much else

Rating: 4/10 (10 January 2009)

Can't really say I was laughing out loud all the way through this. The movie is too cute and Jim Carrey doesn't get to cut loose because of his character, Carl, (has there ever been anyone funny in the movies with a name like that?) spends half of the movie being depressed. Other than Zoey Deschanel (I can't spell it), Carrey is basically the whole show here.
The premise was bad from the start. A man who can't say no but it is too much like the lawyer who can't lie. Sorry, but there is no other way of putting it but you are basically being suckered into seeing Liar, Liar once again but unlike that hilarious film most of the jokes just aren't funny.
The supporting characters are left with nothing to do except being mildly obnoxious (check out the old lady). Danny Masterson looks particularly out of place and Brad Cooper, who was remarkable in The Wedding Crashers, is given nothing to do. Terence Stamp must have received some kind of medal for taking every job that is available, although he was kind of funny in Get Smart. He hasn't done anything very memorable since The Hit.
So what it boils down to is how well does Carrey do his thing. Well, he doesn't slam his head with a toilet seat but there is a funny little sequence where he and his boss are one-upping each other with weird gestures and a particularly nasty sequence involving Carrey's face and some tape. But these moments are few and far between.
One thing though: The band sequence with Deschanel is hilarious and she can actually sing quite well, that is if she wasn't dubbed, I didn't check. She looks pretty and her character is nice but overall she suffers the same fate as the other leading ladies of Carrey's career, that is you can't remember her afterwards.
Carrey is fast becoming the one-time great comedian who seems to be repeating himself. This time it just doesn't work.