The star is manic, but this movie is no panic

Is it necessary for "nice" people to say "yes" to just about everything?

Think about it.

You see this type at parties and in theater lobbies everywhere. They hug everyone - even casual acquaintances. They wish everyone a good day, and they are easily sent into gloom if other people don't respond in kind. They abstain from opinions of their own in the name of being "agreeable."

"Yes Man" is a comedy that raises the question about negative vs. positive as a way of life. Other than that, there didn't seem to be a thought in the collective three heads that wrote it - let alone many jokes.

In "Yes Man," Jim Carrey plays a lonely, gruff bank officer who rejects most applications (a real 2008 kind of guy). He's still in mourning over his divorce. He rejects all offers to go to stupid parties in favor of staying home and watching TV.

When he visits a pompous guru played by Terence Stamp, he immediately (unbelievably) agrees to become a Yes Man. He'll say yes to everything. It's a pretty lame idea for an entire movie, but if you put Carrey in it and have him make faces and dance about, it might just serve as a big-hit antidote to all the really serious, award-seeking movies that are opening at the other theaters.

It has been five years since Carrey made a real Jim Carrey movie - "Bruce Almighty." According to the TV commercials, this is Carrey's return to mugging and acting crazy. And, yes, we have to say, he's funny when he does those things.

It's quite a lot for a person who aspires to any degree of intelligence to admit, but, dang it, the guy was hilarious in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "Dumb and Dumber."

"Yes Man" is not just a sell-out return to the formula of 1997's "Liar Liar." In spite of what's indicated by the TV ads (which use every rubber-faced mugshot in the movie), "Yes Man" is more a romance. At least it would like to be.

Given better writers, something might have been done with this premise. It is based, loosely, on the actual memoirs of British writer Danny Wallace, who endeavored to say "yes" for a year as a social experiment. (Sounds more like a tragedy than a comedy.) Someone might even be tempted to say "yes" to everything for an entire day and see how it works out.

The fans, though, want manic Jim, not romantic Jim, even if the scene-stealing, delightful Zooey Deschanel is the object.

She is the center of this film, if there is a center. She and Carrey have a sweet on-screen chemistry. She's become the girl to tame manic comics since she emerged in "Elf." She has one of the movie's only funny lines when she looks at Carrey and comments, in all puzzlement: "You seem to be somewhat hyper."

No kidding.

Once he decides to say "yes," though, it results in no more than a group of silly comedy sketches. He bungee jumps. He learns to play the guitar. He talks a would-be suicide jumper off a ledge by singing a silly song.

It is the fate of manic comics from Jerry Lewis to Carrey that maturity is not becoming. Adam Sandler, for example, is way overdue to move on from his little-boy routine. Robin Williams' career has reached the point that he's coming to Norfolk to do stand-up.

Carrey's physical humor, though, is universal in its lanky, scarecrow, knockabout way. Like Peter Pan, it would be nice if he didn't have to grow up. At any age, however, he needs better material than he's getting in "Yes Man."