That I got so much enjoyment from the movie's flamboyant style made the inanity of the plot all the more irritating.
The Number 23 (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:184
Fresh:15
Rotten:169
Average Rating:3.5/10
Consensus: 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.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for violence, disturbing images, sexuality and language
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Mystery, Occult, Thriller, Murder, Theatrical Release, Fantasy Worlds
Theatrical Release:Feb 23, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $35,063,732
Synopsis: In Joel Schumacher's psychological thriller THE NUMBER 23, Jim Carrey takes on another dramatic role. Carrey's character is similar to his roles in THE TRUMAN SHOW and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE... In Joel Schumacher's psychological thriller THE NUMBER 23, Jim Carrey takes on another dramatic role. Carrey's character is similar to his roles in THE TRUMAN SHOW and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND: he portrays an average man thrust into quite extraordinary situations after a series of strange events cause him to question everything he's ever taken for granted. On his birthday, Walter Sparrow is given a mysterious and tattered book called THE NUMBER 23 by his loving wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen). As Walter reads the book, he quickly notices its alarming similarities to his own life. Rather than stop reading, he continues, unknowingly inviting the book to take over his life. The deeper Walter gets into the plot, the more he sees himself in its protagonist, Fingerling, whom we see through highly stylized sequences in which Carrey appears as the seedy detective character. Madsen is also present in these scenes, cast as Fingerling's pain-loving girlfriend Fabrizia. As Fingerling and Fabrizia's love affair inches towards its fiery conclusion, we learn the role the number 23 has played in their story and will play in Walter's future if he cannot keep his growing obsession with it at bay. While Carrey and Madsen are adept at playing a man gone mad and a headstrong wife in crisis, they are most fascinating as their dark counterparts, and Schumacher succeeds in creating a truly intoxicating noirish underworld of sex and death through those sequences. [More]
Starring: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston
Starring: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Rhona Mitra
Director: Joel Schumacher
Director: Joel Schumacher
Screenwriter: Fernley Phillips
Producer: Tripp Vinson, Beau Flynn
Studio: New Line Cinema
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Release:
Oct 20, 2009
Reviews for The Number 23
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.
The main test of a twisty thriller is, would you watch it again? You won't, because the solution turns out to be both uncomplicated and cliché.
There are more than 23 reasons why Joel Schumacher's The Number 23 is not very good; but in keeping with the theme, I'll stick to the titular sum:
Though students of formulaic screenwriting may figure this mystery out long before Walter does, there won't be much satisfaction in it because it is totally preposterous.
Visually stylish and dramatically moribund, The Number 23 is a half-baked idea posing as profundity.
I'll give the filmmakers this: They had me calculating the instances 23 appears in my own life. Trust me, it helps pass the time until the closing credits.
If nothing else -- and, trust me, there ain't much else -- the title has a satisfying ring of candour. Yep, The Number 23 is all about the number 23.
Charlie Chaplin did not star in The Wolfman. Jerry Lewis did not attempt Hamlet. Jonathan Winters never appeared in Death of a Salesman. Thank heavens.
The major mistake Carrey made was agreeing to do the movie in the first place.
Newcomer Fernley Phillips' screenplay eventually binds itself into too tight a knot. But it also has some admirable ambitions about family, responsibility, memory.
A thriller like this needs to pack a lot of firepower on the backend. Unfortunately, all we get is a weak, much-anticipated little pop.
The only fright in the nominal thriller The Number 23 is how shaggy, gaunt, and wiped out Jim Carrey looks.
If I wanted to give director Joel Schumacher more credit than he deserves, I'd say that he purposely blew the film up at the 2/3 mark just to make the film a prophecy.
Carrey skillfully leads us on a twisted trek with hair-raising jolts.
Carrey has difficulty playing inner torment without making it look funny, an issue magnified by...director Joel Schumacher's concessions to utilizing the actor's skills to get laughs.
Part detective story, part psychological drama, this is unsatisfying on both levels.
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