Average Rating: 3.5/10
Reviews Counted: 186
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 171
Jim Carrey has been sharp in a number of non-comedic roles, but this lurid, overheated, and self-serious potboiler is not one of them. The Number 23 is clumsy, unengaging, and mostly confusing.
Average Rating: 3.5/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 35
Jim Carrey has been sharp in a number of non-comedic roles, but this lurid, overheated, and self-serious potboiler is not one of them. The Number 23 is clumsy, unengaging, and mostly confusing.
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Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 457,527
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Upon acquiring a mysterious book in which the number 23 seems to take on powerful cosmic significance, a once-sane man gradually becomes obsessed with the idea that the frequently recurring number may in fact hold a deadly secret in this intense mystery-thriller starring Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen, and directed by Joel Schumacher. Walter Sparrow (Carrey) is a middle-aged dogcatcher whose wife Agatha (Madsen) has bestowed him with an obscure mystery novel detailing the investigation launched
Feb 23, 2007 Wide
Jul 5, 2005
$35.1M
New Line Cinema
All Critics (187) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (18) | Rotten (176) | DVD (26)
For all its gimmicky numerology, The Number 23 just doesn't add up.
Pretty much every important date in history...can be teased to fit the pattern. What can't be hammered out of this fixation, apparently, is a coherent movie.
The Number 23 is an accidental comedy starring a deadly serious Jim Carrey.
Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times. Charles Manson was born Nov. 12 (11 + 12 = 23). The Mayans believed the world would end on Dec. 23, 2012 (20 + 1 + 2 = 23). My brother stole my pogo stick when I was 23 and broke it into 23 pieces.
Carrey owns this movie. He's in virtually every scene, and there's no taking one's eyes from him.
Pages turn, knives plunge, rain patters and the camera rarely holds steady. No amount of quick cuts and twitchy shots, however, can compensate for the lack of narrative momentum.
Absurd, dark, and a miscast Jim Carrey. Yuck.
...starts with a promising idea, allows it devolve into chaos, and, finally, grinds it into the trite and mundane. (Blu-ray Edition)
Nothing to decipher here
There is something to this 23 stuff, and a film about apophenia (obsession with random connections) would be fascinating. But no.
Jim Carrey tries his best, but the film never gets psychologically creepy, never makes the viewer question what is fiction, what is reality, and most importantly what the number 23 is all about.
A convoluted and rather dull affair.
So much cascading hatred for the audience runs through the flickering images of this film!
New Line Home Entertaintment ... have given it quite an impressive treatment.
... the film astoundingly reaches new levels of unintentional self-parody with every turn.
OK, so I was one of 23 people who actually liked The Number 23 when it came out on the big screen. Sue me for $23. And then double it, because although I will admit it's a bit flaccid upon second view, I still dug this DVD enough to recommend it to...
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 23 times, shame on me.
As expected, the DVD edition (July 07) contains several commentaries (by mathematicians, director Schumacher, star Jim Carrey) about the myth, reality, and significance of numbers in our lives; Carrey says he named his company JC23 before making the film!
Lacks the sort of streamlined clarity and crisp, clever reversals that keep the best such genre efforts entertainingly dancing just beyond the grasp of full deciphering.
THE NUMBER 23 starts off promisingly but quickly devolves into an uneven mess.
This was def a different role for Carrey and i enjoyed it. i think this movie had a chance to be so much more.
March 22, 2007Super Reviewer
The Number 23 is by no means confusing and a remarkable concept. It took my interest and took me ona thrill ride. In reality after watching the film. I realised it was about a number. Jim performed just as solidly and dramatically as he did in Eternal Sunshine and The Truman Show. A favorite of mine but not built for
September 20, 2011
Super Reviewer
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