Schumacher's numerical nightmare is an anemic psychological thriller basking in contrivance...woefully muddled and lacking...the math doesn't quite add up.
The Number 23 (2007)
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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: 15 [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: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... 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
Reviews for The Number 23
one of the funniest movies Carrey has made in years -- and, unfortunately, the laughs are mostly unintentional. ...piles contrivance on top of contrivance until it's impossible to take Walter's descent into paranoia seriously.
The only baffling mystery here is why it was ever made in the first place.
This review's opening sentence, the really dull, pointless one that you are reading at this very moment, is comprised of exactly 23 words.
Though the holes were rather small, I had to count them all. Now we know how many holes it takes to fill The Number 23.
It's so bad that it almost inadvertently becomes interesting, and the last twenty minutes take the viewer to impressive heights of inexplicable silliness.
Laughable...We can only hope a sequel called The Number 46 doesn't get made.
While The Number 23 is probably not destined for masterpiece status, it does what it sets out to do: entertain, and mess with your mind.
While conspiracy theorists search for the ultimate meaning of the integer at the center of it, someone should have paid more attention to the words.
Do yourself a favor and avoid spending the $23 it will cost to buy two tickets and some popcorn to see The Number 23
It's a constipated thriller; a delusional pinch of misdirection and screenwriting runaround that should've been a bottle rocket to the brain, but instead suffocates in style and a lack of imagination.
Greater than the terror that Jim Carrey's character...feels in the course of The Number 23 may have been that which Carrey and his castmates felt midway through production as the glowering awfulness of this project began to dawn on them.
moments meant to instill fear either evoke boredom or, more often, the giggles
There's little in this first script by Fernley Phillips but bloodless notions -- nothing that might qualify, by the light of day, as entertainment.
Here's our homage to the film's tortured permutations of the numerals 2 and 3: 3 minus 2 equals 1. And there is only one reason to see this movie: You have absolutely nothing better to do.
Not helping matters are the over-the-top moments so typical of director Joel Schumacher's oeuvre.
If Jim Carrey is to prove himself in a dramatic role, he needs a less convoluted script.
Let's cut to the chase: Movies don't get much more dunderheaded than Joel Schumacher's semi-psychological thriller The Number 23.
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