I enjoyed it a lot. I haven't heard of anyone else who has.
The Number 23 (2007)
Rated: 15
Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins
Theatrical Release: 23-02-2007
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 SPOTLESS MIND: he portrays an average man thrust into quite extraordinary situations after a... 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]
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Occult, Murder, Fantasy Worlds
Starring: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins
DVD Info
Release:
Dec 7, 2008
DVD Features:
- O-Card - Keep Case
- Widescreen
Audio:
- (unspecified) - English
Additional Release Material:
- Behind the Scenes - Making of THE NUMBER 23
- Deleted Scenes - 15 Minutes of Deleted Scenes
- Featurettes - 1. "The Number 23 Enigma"
- 2. "How To Do Your Numbers"
Reviews
The answers to the story's questions are even sillier than the questions.
Spookily, it must have been in about the 23rd minute that my spirits began to sink and I thought: “There’d better be an awfully clever pay-off at the end of this.” Well, there isn’t.
Part detective story, part psychological drama, this is unsatisfying on both levels.
While dozing through this nonsense you may wish to speculate on the number's real significance to this movie: possibly the IQ of its writer?
This will undoubtedly appeal to fans of a conspiracy theory, but thrillseekers will be left feeling short-changed.
Just imagine, if this movie was really good, it’d get five stars (2 + 3). Instead it gets a two. Which adds up to very little.
Carrey tries hard to parlay his usual mad mugging into serious mad mugging, but Joel Schumacher isn't the director to get him there. Count Schumacher's films - 23 really is a bad number.
This is a film that doesn’t quite know what it is. Perhaps a mistake would be the fairest description.
Carrey gives the worst performance of his, or indeed any other actor's, career.
Carrey is effectively sinister, the visuals are often amazing, but there's less to this murky psycho-thriller than meets the eye.
There's enough style, intrigue and plot twistiness in this thriller to keep us watching
Patchy thriller that has the occasional lively moment but is mostly confusing, tedious nonsense.
Genuinely intriguing in places and romps along at a satisfying pace for a conspiracy thriller.
Things don't really add up in The Number 23, but you can count on some queasy chills and trashy thrills all the same.
Schumacher keeps it pacy, the murky camerawork’s very cool, Carrey suitably wide-eyed, but its limitations are finally only too obvious.
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.
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