Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni star in "Fun With Dick and Jane." Click photo for larger image. 'Fun With Dick and Jane' Rating: PG-13 for brief language, some sexual humor and occasional humorous drug references Starring: Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni Director: Dean Parisot "Fun With Dick and Jane" Web site

Fun is a fair way to define Jim Carrey. Even back in the day as the crazy white guy on "In Living Color," his rubber face and cartoonish mannerisms were fun to watch, as long as you didn't think too hard about it or expect him to be anything more.

Fifteen years later, Carrey is still fun, still prone to facial hyperbole and still no deeper as an actor (I never completely bought into his dramatic scenes in "The Truman Show," "Man in the Moon" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"). But one important thing has changed for Carrey: His ability to be fun-fun-fun has made him rich-rich-rich and a powerful man in Hollywood. So powerful, in fact, that some of the best comic scripts gravitate to him like steel filings to a magnet. Carrey can pick and choose his projects and afford to co-produce those likely to be effective vehicles for his screen persona.

That's how director Dean Parisot's Enron-era update of the original 1977 "Fun With Dick and Jane," starring George Segal and Jane Fonda, landed in Carrey's lap. It's a fun story about the fun side of corporate malfeasance, pulling defeat from the jaws of victory, and spanking the rich and greedy.

See Dick, an upwardly mobile midlevel executive at a prosperous business who's just been offered the promotion of a lifetime. See Jane, his wife, who's happy with her family and would like to spend more time at home with their kid. See Jane quit her job just as Dick is forced to defend his company's collapse. See Dick and Jane turn to a life of crime.

Poverty is fun, if you don't think too hard about it, and Dick and Jane's downwardly mobile slide makes them the laughingstock of their upscale suburban neighborhood. Armed robbery is fun, too, if you don't think at all, and Carrey helps to amplify the natural comedic instincts of Tea Leoni, as Dick and Jane launch a suburban crime spree to restore their middle-class lifestyle.

Eventually, Dick and Jane realize that the real money had been drained from his former company by the corporate raider who set him up as the fall guy, and they turn their amateur criminal skills toward him. Alec Baldwin is fun as a tough, smart, greedy guy who cashed out of his company just before its orchestrated collapse.

In the most fun part of "Fun With Dick and Jane," the victimized workers get even with their former boss. Crime pays in the same way that Carrey is funny -- when you don't think too hard about it. Don't rush out when the credits begin. Director Parisot and co-producers Carrey and Brian Glazer throw in a fun extra treat for those who wait.