BUBBLE BOY Bonanno, left, and Bichlbaum pitch a bug-like survival suit.

You’ll be disappointed but, we hope, not surprised to learn that the title is a bit of an exaggeration. The Yes Men—Bichlbaum and Bonanno—are a pair of merry anti-corporate, anti-establishment pranksters. They pull off some clever jokes at the expense of the powerful. Using fake websites and little more, they snag invitations to speak at business conferences and the like, and then put forth modest proposals that would make Jonathan Swift envious (dead people as an alternative energy source). Or they do what they think corporations ought to do, as when they pretend to represent Dow Chemical and claim to have accepted responsibility for the Bhopal disaster. That stunt caused a brief plummet in Dow stock prices before people realized it was a hoax.

But while political activist performance art may bring on a much-needed giggle (How can you not laugh at insurance people intrigued by the Yes Men’s bizarre inflatable disaster survival suit?), it has little real impact. In disingenuous voiceover, Bichlbaum and Bonanno pretend to come gradually to this realization. Gosh, we couldn’t get corporations to see how evil they are by pretending to be them and doing the right thing, or by pretending to be them and pursuing greed to a reductio ad absurdum conclusion. What shall we do next? Unfortunately, they have no real answer except to keep on pranking.

• Now playing. Find showtimes
• More film reviews
• Search more than 30,000 film reviews
• More Film articles