The Number 23 (2007) User Reviews

Just because you're paranoid....

[Simmy41 · 7/10 · 28 February 2007]

9/11 2001, 9+11+2+1= 23, JFK was killed on November 22, 1963 2+2=4 and 1+9+6+3=19 and 19+4= 23, Caesar was stabbed 23 times, and so on so forth.

Whether you think it's a coincidence or not it's still pretty cool and Joel Schumacher's the Number 23 wouldn't have been half as interesting without his knowledge.

The film follows Walter (Jim Carey) as his life starts to be consumed paranoia as he claims the number 23 is haunting him. He comes to this conclusion whilst reading a book, the Number 23 which he draws parallels with the main character's upbringing and his own childhood. The only problem being, said main character a detective Fingerling kills his lovely girlfriend. As everything in the book already mirrors Walters past, why shouldn't it mirror his future also? Worried that he'll kill his wife, Walter attempts to track down the author before it's too late.

Though it's easy to throw insults at Schumacher (Batman and Robin anyone?) he is good at thrillers being at the helm of Falling Down and Phone Booth. Here he delivers again. True, the ending may be a little drawn out and may not be to everyone's taste, however Carey's performance is once again proof that the rubber faced actor can indeed, well…act. It's just a shame that with every serious performance by Carey, critics scrutinise his performance because it isn't comedy. Have they seen the Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine….people? Carey can act. And Schumacher can direct, the only problem here is the plot isn't that strong, with the twist maybe feeling a little anticlimactic. Still it's an enjoyable film and may have you looking for the number 23 yourself when you leave the cinema.

Watchable, not Wonderful

[falkar · 6/10 · 24 February 2007]

There has been a great deal of critical scorn directed at 'The Number 23', which almost made me rethink my decision to see it, despite finding the concept very enticing, being impressed by the promotional materials, and generally liking Joel Schumacher as a director (yes, Batman and Robin was awful, but he's directing some very good films like The Client, Phone Booth and The Lost Boys) And after seeing the finished product, I find myself asking why the knives are out for the film. Now, I'm not saying this is a brilliant film, because it isn't. It's rather easy to guess the plot twists, the script does tend to patronise the viewer and the final segment of the film casually abandons the central premise in favour of a more generic 'mystery' storyline. But I found quite a few things to like about the movie, such as strong performances from Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen, very stylish direction and (for most of the movie)a genuine undercurrent of tension as the events unfold. It's not going to be remembered as a highlight on the careers of anyone involved, but if you enjoyed conspiracy theory novels such as The Da Vinci Code or shows like the X-Files, you are more likely to see past the critics and enjoy this film.

Final Score 6 (which is 2x3)/10

It's a fine two-act movie. But that third act

[samseescinema · 6/10 · 21 February 2007]

The Number 23 reviewed by Samuel Osborn

Psychological thrillers are a tough gig. You need an ending. The build-up, the suspense, the rising action, all that squirmy paranoia, it's easy enough to build. It's the ending that's the tricky part. Films like Memento do it right; films like Fight Club, too. Their twist, the unraveled knot of anxiety that splays out in explanation and relief, comes with another bulge of knots; it leaves you breathless and troubled, disturbed if you're lucky. But without the ending, without the final flick in the nose and punch in the gut, a psycho-thriller is just a bunch of untied shoelaces.

This is the affliction born to The Number 23. It's a fine two-act movie. But that third act…with the climax all flaccid and the end a noiseless wheeze, it leaves us with that let-down feeling of something promising turned instantly to a sham. I won't give the ending away, but suffice it to say that it's summed up by the word "typical." Commonplace is the ending. And commonplace is somewhere The Number 23 has no business being.

The rest of the film is a good one; a fine looking few rolls of celluloid, in fact. Jim Carrey plays the lead, still rounding off the sharper edges of his comedy and reminding us happily of Tom Hanks' move from comedy to drama. He's a hopelessly likable actor paired gracefully with Virginia Madsen, who plays Carrey's wife and mother to his teenage son. The family lives comfortably under Agatha's (Madsen) cake shop and Walter's (Carrey) job as an animal control officer. The paranoia enters like a whisper, as feckless and unassuming as director Joel Schumacher can stand.

The famously melodramatic director is often thought of as the second-string choice for any theatrical film-making, just behind the dramatic grandmaster Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!). Schumacher revels in colors and camera tricks, over-saturating and under-saturating his images until they're hardly recognizable. The effect here is controlled, but not empty of pizazz.

The book Agatha finds (or does it find her?) when waiting for Walter outside a used bookshop is "The Number 23" by Topsy Kretts. Walter opens the novel on his day off, gorging himself on the minutiae of its hardboiled detective hero and fantasizing himself in the lead role. Schumacher indulges Walter further, fancying "The Number 23's" Detective Fingerling as a slippery-haired Mr. Carrey in a cheap suit and a dry growl. Much of the story is actually told within the novel itself, with Fingerling getting lost in the numerology surrounding the number 23 and slipping towards the inevitability of murder. Back in reality, Walter is finding uncanny resemblances between Fingerling and himself. It's as if, he once mentions, the author knows him better than he does. Agatha writes it off as an effect of good literature, but reconsiders when she finds scribbled numerology on Walter's arm one morning with the underlined words "Kill Her." He's begun to see the number everywhere. It's in his name, his social security number, his birth date, and even the day he and Agatha first met. His paranoia, once a whisper, is now a screech, and he worries for the safety of his own family.

Stop there. Just stop the film, put down your popcorn and walk away. Because that's as good as The Number 23 will get. The bouncy humor, the family drama, the rise in paranoia, the fascination in 23, it all works up until here. But it's as if Screenwriter Fernley Phillips lost the thread. It was unraveling with speed and machismo, promising to tower upwards in a great final disturbance. But instead it turned inward and ricocheted blindly backwards. Instead of opening up the throttle and letting the number have real meaning and significance, Phillips turns the plot inward and shells up the climax with a muffled grunt.

Samuel Osborn

(23 - 23) + 23 = ?

[jack_o_hasanov_imdb · 7/10 · 8 August 2021]

It's interesting to see Jim Carrey in such a role, I think he did a good job. When I watched it for the first time, I was a teenager and I was amazed, it's not a "wow" movie but I think you will enjoy watching it.

Average thriller with some open questions

[Luigi Di Pilla · 6/10 · 12 August 2007]

I knew when I bought THE NUMBER 23 on DVD that I haven't to expect too much after reading the critics on this link. I watched it with high attention till the end and I have to say that it worked on a fair level as an average thriller. There are some points in this film that weren't logic for me. Anyway, if you have really nothing to do this one offers many mysteries and puzzles to solve but not great suspense. There were perhaps some unnecessary bloody scenes. I was very positive surprised seeing Jim Carrey giving a great and respectable performance in a thriller. I cannot share some opinions that he was misplaced here because he has no doubt a great talent and I can imagine him in other roles of this genre. And director Joel Schuhmacher made finally a better movie than his last ones. Final number: 6/10.

The Number 23!

[beermonsteruk · 6/10 · 27 May 2020]

I remember when this film came out in 2007 but for some reason I didn't see it at the time, then i stumbled across it many years later in a cheap dvd store so grabbed it, I like Jim Carrey as a comic actor but as this was billed as a horror i was intrigued to see how he'd fare in this.

Carrey stars as Walter Sparrow, a rather goofy, likeable animal control officer, and when he is bitten by a dog called Ned (which Sparrow comically refers to as nasty evil dog) it caused him to be late while meeting his wife in a bookstore, she then advises him to read a fairly old, scrappy looking book called "The Number 23", by Topsy Krets, so he does and is soon enthralled by the book, noting similarities between his own life, including the name/nickname of the books main character, "Fingerling".

The more Walter reads of the story he comes across a character called "the suicide blonde", who explains that the number 23 is cursed and appears everywhere around her, as he reads this, Walter too becomes obsessed with the number, as well as the main character, who he is convinced is somehow about him, his wife dismisses the idea but his son seems to agree with him and Walter is determined to find out more as well as track down the elusive Topsy Kretts, who it seems has no other body of work except for the novel Walter is reading, and a clerk at a bookstore, finds no information on Kretts.

As the story unfolds, it appears there is more to the whole story than meets the eye, as dark turns and twists occur, and we get an insight into Walters past, and just why he thinks the novel is somehow based on his life.

The film for me definitely lost a bit of steam as it went on, the constant flashes of Walter, as fingerling interacting with characters in the book became somewhat distracting after a while, and the more you learned about 23 it kind of took away the mystery, however the film was enjoyable in parts, and I did enjoy Carreys performance, even though I kept thinking he'd go full on rubberface mode (he didn't), it bought some humour into a somewhat bleak story.

Overall this film wasn't that good, but it was decent and I did thoroughly enjoy the first half hour or so, and I don't regret watching it I wouldn't go too far out of my way to endorse either.

6/10 Very mild recommendation.

one of the worst movies i've ever seen (spoilers for days)

[dfbruton · 1/10 · 3 March 2007]

In a word, god-awful... too many plot holes.. um, yeah... Who takes their kid to dig up a dead body in the middle of the night? and what's up with his wife stealing the skeleton.. who does that? why, exactly did the shrink stab himself in the neck? and that whole dog thing.. i mean, really! Having Sparrow narrate from the beginning also just completely destroyed the suspense for me.. i mean, if he's narrating the story, clearly he's lived to tell it, so there's no chance of him getting offed.. where's the suspense there?

Of course, you expect plot holes in a film like this. But, there are so many I lost track of the story completely because of them. What kind of name is Fingerling? Or Toppsy? Why did the wife dig up the body? (Who does that?) or go into that crazy spooky asylum alone? and where'd all those candles come from? Why does the writer have his PO BOX in the freaking book??? I mean come on... And the book just happens to find its way to the bookstore next door to the wife's bakery?? Way too convenient... Oh and Happy Birthday Honey, here's a book about a serial killer.. What a THOUGHTFUL gift! The book is like 20 pages long, half of which are blank, and it takes him freaking FOREVER to read it. If he's truly obsessed with this book, wouldn't he have read it all in one shot?

A bit convenient for him to bump into his future wife (carrying a cake!) about 23 seconds after being released from a mental hospital.. how old was he playing? 36??

Was I the only one at the end rooting for the bus to actually run the guy down? Not good when you're rooting for the protagonist to bite it in the end.

It seems like this was written by committee.. I imagine that the first draft probably had nothing to do with the number 23... It seems as if they needed a gimmicky hook to bait the audience into thinking there was some supernatural thing going on, when in the end it really didn't seem to have anything to do with anything. I mean, I wasn't expecting the Godfather or anything, but everything about this film was a total let-down. Without all the numerology stuff, this movie could actually have been OK, instead of some hackneyed Se7en knockoff.

Not scary, unintentionally hilarious and otherwise a total snoozer.

Still waiting for Carrey to relaunch his career as a drama actor

[bhester0806 · 8/10 · 13 August 2021]

Carrey KILLS it in this movie. He was perfect for the role and acted the hell out of it. I just know one of these days he's going to have a career renaissance and come back as a serious actor and knock everyone's socks off.

Kinda neat, kinda dumb, very sinister but not bad

[Samiam3 · 7/10 · 30 August 2009]

I can't say that either Jim Carrey or Joel Schumacher have done anything impressive lately, but they do an okay job here. The number 23 is strangely entertaining. With its moody tone, its claustrophobic and haunting photography, its convoluted storytelling, and a lot of walls defaced with black ink, the movie frequently resembles John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. This one is not quite as creative, and even though it occasionally gets clumsy, the film is fairly intriguing and might be worth checking out if you like scary thrillers.

Jim Carrey is Walter Sparrow, a mild mannered dog catcher who has a nice family and a dull life. On Chrismas week, his wife buys him a strange memoir entitled 'The number 23'. Sparrow is a little sceptic at first, but once he starts to read he quickly gains interest, and is surprised to discover that the story has remarkable resemblance to his own life. One aspect in particular has gotten his attention. Sparrow starts to notice the number 23 itself appear everywhere, in dates, names, times... It gets him quite excited. Soon however, this hysteria will take him down a dark road as he seeks to find out the truth about what is really going on. What does the number mean? who wrote the novel? and what does it have to do with him?

The funny thing about the movie, is that the whole 23 concept ends up being kind of eluding and irrelevant. It feels like little more than a plot element to throw the viewer off track so we cannot figure out the movie before it is ready to give us the climactic twist. Depending on how focused you are on the picture, it may or may not work. The ending is strangely predicable in a way, although not too blatantly.

I can't say much for the acting (esspecially Carrey) but the cinematography and music are quite eccentric. There are times when the Number 23 feels like a cross between a Jazzy scored film-noir and a comic book.

I guess in the end, the movie could use a little work, but of course nothing is perfect. Try it and see what it does for you. It's not 2 bad3 .

Lame

[The_Defiant1 · 1/10 · 3 March 2007]

This movie has no respect for the viewer's time. It takes a 15 minute story and stretches it into 95 minutes. In order to achieve this, they have to use a very slow narration and have everyone run around with some implausible frantic angst. By the time this movie showed anything interesting in the plot, I just didn't care. The problem is not in the acting, but instead the pacing. The story is just weak. Jim Carrey is a capable actor, but his attempts to inject light humor into a serious role is just out of place. His style of humor is not generic, so he comes across as a watered down version of himself. The number 23 causes great grief and frustration to the people in the story, but the justification for this is never logical. At most it's just mildly interesting. Jim Carrey has far more ability in a serious role than this movie reveals. Don't waste your money seeing this in the theater. Rent this movie if you've had problems sleeping. If you are still wide awake after 10 minutes, then you liked it more than I did. I was not fond of the lighting and artistic aspects of the film making either. A lot of passive visual eye candy was thrown at the viewer with lighting or effects and it did little to enhance the already weak story.

Overall I think this movie is a little underrated and deserves a solid score and I'd strongly recommend seeing this once

[kevin_robbins · 8/10 · 1 July 2021]

The Number 23 (2007) is a movie I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a family that becomes fascinated by a unique book. The husband as he reads the book finds he can uniquely relate to many aspects of the storyline and begins thinking the book is about him. His wife tries to keep him from ruining their family with his obsession but the more he digs the more he appears to be losing his mind.... This movie is directed by Joel Schumacher (A Time to Kill) and stars Jim Carey (Ace Venture), Virginia Madsen (Candyman), Danny Huston (The Aviator) and Corey Stoll (Ant-man). The storyline for this is very clever and intricate. I absolutely loved seeing Carey in this role and don't think they could have picked a better leading actor. The script was very good and Carey delivered a very relatable character. The murder mystery aspects were fairly intense and you have doubts right up till the end of the movie. I also loved how this movie concluded, very smart. Overall I think this movie is a little underrated and deserves a solid 8/10 score and I'd strongly recommend seeing this once.

Not bad, but it could have been better.

[theshadow908 · 7/10 · 26 February 2007]

The Number 23 tells the story of a man who starts to read a book called The Number 23, about a detective who begins to go crazy connecting the number 23 to everything, eventually ending with the detective committing murder. This scares the man because he finds a large amount of points in the book that mirror his own life. He himself begins to go crazy with the number, and as he reads on, he finds that there is more mystery involved with the book's origins than he could ever imagine. This is a well made, entertaining film, but it fell flat towards the end.

First off, this movie is made very well. The visual style of it is very dark and Gothic which was kind of cool. The scenes depicting what was happening in the book were awesome. They had a kind of surrealistic tone to them which was cool. It looked kind of like film noir which made it look really good. The movie was a pretty good mystery once the main character begins looking for a killer that's on the loose. Unfortunately, the movie just isn't that creepy. Some of the things said about 23 are a little chilling, but it just seems pushed and overused in some parts. This movie, like most of its kind, has a twist ending. Though I won't say what the big twist is, I suppose I can say without giving anything away for sure that it's a highly overused and clichéd twist ending that I was unable to find surprising due to the fact that I've seen it done so many times. In my opinion, the movie was pretty good right up until the last, oh let's say, 23 minutes.

Jim Carrey's performance was surprisingly good. I usually don't like it when he plays a serious role, but because there was a few humorous points, this role seemed to suit him. His performance as the detective in the novel was actually really cool. Everybody else's performances were just okay.

Overall, this was a cool, well made movie that kind of fell apart in the end. There was definitely room for improvement.

6.5/10

Descends into absurdity

[snow0r · 3/10 · 8 August 2007]

Despite the critical negativity surrounding its initial release, I was quite excited when I heard that The Number 23 was coming out on DVD soon; I was strangely drawn to the promises of trashy, pseudo-intellectual entertainment made by the trailer and its absurd yet curiously intriguing plot. Such promises are unfortunately unfulfilled.

Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) receives a book for his birthday. As he reads, he notices some parallels between the life of the novel's protagonist, Fingerling, and his own. Not an uncommon experience, many readers would argue. However, little details and numerical coincidences pop up more and more, and soon Walter's simple life is consumed by the novel.

Soon, the lives of Walter and Fingerling blend together, allowing for some acting flourishes from Carrey as his typically oddball character descends into one of his typically neurotic characters at a questionably fast pace. His performance is well contrasted by Virginia Madsen, who takes on the role of his wife, and for the most part, the audience, as she criticises Walter's small revelations. Having read the book, she admits "I didn't get it". The idea is that by the end, we'll come around. But we don't.

For some reason, at around the halfway point, it lunges forward as if the middle act has been left on the cutting room floor, perhaps in a bid to keep the running time at an ADD-friendly 90 minutes. Carrey is suddenly a lunatic, despite being a little over halfway through the novel at best, and 23 turns into a Scooby-Doo-ish murder mystery as the family jump in the van and track down an escaped murderer. It just falls apart and leaves you wondering what might have been.

The expository ending ties up the loose ends re-establishes some coherency on the disorder, but nevertheless, the film ends with its biggest question left unanswered: if your surname was Sparrow, why would you name your son Robin?

The Number 23

[rajdoctor · 6/10 · 10 June 2007]

I like Jim Carrey, not because he is a comedian, but because he emerged as a serious actor in attempting to select good roles that will give him the variety of dimensions to display his talent.

The story of the movie is about a happy married man Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) and his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) and son Robin (Logan Lerman). One day as a gift his wife presents him with a novel The Number 23. On reading it Walter realizes the similarities the novel has with his life. The novel turns out to be a thriller with a murder mystery. Walter gets engaged into the paranoia of number 23 and tries to find a running parallel in real life to identify the characters and solve the murder mystery. Like a detective Walter traces the murderer and unknown writer of the novel. One clue leads to another, and another – until the end, the real murderer is exposed. I won't tell you the secret. Just a clue that the novel is written by someone named Topsy Eret.

The narrative of the movie is a bit puzzling, and I think the Director Joel Schumacher must have intentionally worked on it that way. Why I say this is because after the movie got over, I had the urge to see the movie again to understand the early half properly, and get more clarity in why the story is told in this manner and how the events are unfolded. But will I go and see the movie again, not really.

The movie is good, but not brilliant. It eclipse on the fringe areas of brilliance but falls shorts due to its direction. In the past Joel Schumacher has struggled to make commercially successful movie even with a good storyline on his hand. Here too he flounders. The saving grace of this thriller is one and only – Jim Carrey, who carries the whole burden of this movie on his shoulder, and makes us believe in the magical number 23.

After seeing the movie, I remembered my Dad who has paranoia of number 5. The amazing past time my Dad and Mom together had was when they found ways to add, subtract, multiply and divide any number to arrive at an answer that was 5. It is a unique ability and obviously paranoia. But it is amusing.

The same paranoia has been presented here with a mysterious thriller storyline. To some extend the director achieves success to telling us this novel story of number 23.

Jim Carrey looks haggard with age, but has played the character brilliantly. Virginia Madsen and Logan Lerman have acted decently but nothing worth historic to mention here.

Go and see it if you are a Jim Carrey fan or if you have a fascination for NUMBERS, both ways you will enjoy this movie.

(Stars 6 out of 10)

Not exploited enough

[bsinc · 6/10 · 3 June 2007]

Like this year's "Next" with Nicholas Cage I can't stop but feel this movie had so much more to offer. Although the execution of the movie was somewhat superior to "Next", they both follow a really similar storyline AND they both failed to use what was laying around their backyards.

I missed those goose-bumpy feelings, the ones I get when something falls so perfectly into place that it simply couldn't have been done any better...after all "The number 23" is a thriller, and the 3rd act is always the most important...Sadly, the end result is too Hollywood for my taste, the idea of somebody writing a book and forgetting about it is pretty interesting, but it could have been done much better.

I missed more explanation behind the "infamous" number 23 itself, how it came to be, why it would pop out on every corner of human history etc, after all the movie revolves around it, and the whole ordeal simply felt just like an excuse to make a story for a movie...Sadly, it remained so throughout the whole movie.

I missed more of Jim Carrey's book narration, to me the absolute best part of this movie was when he starts reading it and narrates us through the author's words...that's when the movie really got my attention...Sadly, the remainder of the book doesn't come anywhere near these moments and looks and feels like about a gazillion other popular movies with flashbacks.

A movie, that like "Next" could have been a masterpiece had it been done 20-40 years ago by a more daring crew of filmmakers, a movie that like "Next" failed to explore the very interesting topic it imposes on us (quite stupid really) and a movie, that like "Next" bombed at the Box office....Destiny...?;)

MY MORAL OF THE STORY: A potentially good story for a movie is surprisingly rare to come by these days. The right people should know that it should be treated with the utmost care by a far superior director

Red. Blood Red.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 24 July 2013]

The Number 23 is directed by Joel Schumacher and written by Fernley Phillips. It stars Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins and Rhona Mitra. Music is by Harry Gregson-Williams and cinematography by Matthew Libatique.

Walter Sparrow (Carrey) becomes obsessed with a novel that he comes to believe is written about him. As his obsession increases and the number 23 comes into play, the similarities arise and danger lurks at every corner.

Topsy Kretts at A Novel Fate.

A tough film to recommend with confidence, as the most divisive critical notices would suggest, The Number 23 is for some a genuinely intriguing movie with style to burn. The complex narrative structure, visual styles, gumshoe type narration and nods to classic era noir movies, certainly makes this more of interest to noir fans than your average horror/thriller seeker. The premise of the 23 enigma is quite a hook, especially for the conspiracy theorists out there, while the blending of paranoia and distortion of reality really puts a bleakness over the plotting to keep it edgy. Unfortunately much of it doesn't hold up under scrutiny, big leaps of faith are needed and the finale fizzles out in a whimper. But mostly it's thought provoking for the right reasons.

Suicide Blonde.

Visually it's a most arresting piece. The present world inhabited by Walter and his family is filled with bold reds and greens, while his flashback world, where he is detective Fingerling, is full of oblique decor, high contrast lighting and skewed angles. Carrey came in for some criticism, but he sits the role(s) well, especially as Walter's mind starts to fracture. Everyone else is up to scratch with par performances, while Williams provides a score that mixes eerie foreboding with the rumbles of psychological unease. There's much strange about the whole production, a sort of trippy/feverish dream where the editing jolts you out of the comfort zone and begs you to be involved in solving the mystery of The Number 23.

Not for everyone, obviously, and it asks a lot of forgiveness for its faults. Yet there is a better film here than I was led to believe it was. Perhaps for you as well? 7/10

Lamest movie ever made.

[x_imdb-427 · 1/10 · 30 July 2007]

This is the most stupid movie ever made. The story is laughable. His wife and kid think he's insane. Then they don't. Then it turns out he is and I think they knew it all along. There is a dog named Ned that causes some problems and I think it's all his fault...so does Jim Carey. God only knows why Virginia Madsen took this role...this is a career sinker. I think the target audience for this is 11 and 12 year olds. And that adds up to 23. Or maybe it's for 8 and 10 years olds which also adds up to 23. Or maybe it's for really dumb 23 year olds. Or maybe really dumb 32 year olds because that's 23 in reverse. Or maybe 46 year olds would enjoy it because half of that is 23. I think looking up things on the internet about the number 23 would be more entertaining than this movie, unless you wanted to see a comedy.

A Strange, Dark Psychological Thriller

[saintonge · 10/10 · 15 October 2009]

I watched this by accident. I was looking for another movie, a comedy about a man who thinks he's a character in a novel (which turns out to be STRANGER THAN FICTION). Comedy, Jim Carrey, I thought this had to be it. I was wrong, and boy, am I glad I goofed.

Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, a fairly ordinary-seeming man, an animal control officer whose wife Aggie (played by Virginia Madsen) happens to buy him what seems to be the only copy of a self-published novel, THE NUMBER 23. But as Walter reads the book, the story of a homicide detective named Fingerling, he finds the character reminding him of himself. As he reads of the character Fingerling's descent into obsession and madness, he becomes increasingly disturbed himself, and goes hunting for the pseudononymous author, determined to find out what it all means. The answer uncovers a dark secret involving a murder committed over a decade ago, and alters the lives of Walter and his family permanently.

I won't say more, it would give away too much, but I found this wonderfully acted, beautifully written, and altogether involving. Carrey excellently plays both Walter Sparrow and Dec. Fingerling (in scenes from the novel shown as Carrey reads it), Madsen shines as loving housewife Aggie and novel character Fabrizia, and the supporting players turn in excellent performances, particularly Lynn Collins as the novel character Suicide Blond. The photography is frequently dark and threatening, which fits the plot, the sets are marvelous, and the climax is perfect.

I hope Carrey does more serious roles. This movie proves he's not just a funny rubber face.

So much wasted potential

[mrmatt14 · 6/10 · 20 February 2007]

Hrmm... where to start.

Matthew Libatuque is about as good of a cinematographer as there is working, and for the visually inclined out there, this one is a feast.

Jim Carrey.... hrmm... Jim Carrey. I like it when comic actors play dark, as long as it's done well. He does this one well, but he's still the wrong actor for the role. There's a difference between being dark and playing dark, and unfortunately, he was just playing. This one was SCREAMING for Colin Farrell, but instead we get Jim Carrey proving that he really can act.

But as for the movie, I can simply say it's a mixed bag, and the fault there goes to Joel Schumacher. He gets credit for being a mainstream director who likes the dark material, but once again (*ahem* 8mm) he either doesn't understand the material, or isn't willing to stick up for it's integrity in the face of his big studio bosses. Either way, David Fincher could have done wonders with this, or Christopher Nolan, or any of the other directors who have a talent with solid, dark material.

The ending is the ultimate fault of the movie. Obviously, some suspension of disbelief is required for something like this, but the ending so strains credulity that it ruins some otherwise noteworthy work in the rest of the film. There are so many excellent directions this could have gone, but Schumacher opted for clever, and that relegates this one to little more than a renter.

2+3=5

[zeeshancmpunk · 5/10 · 1 September 2020]

2+3=5 and also that's the highest this movie deserves.

freaky and cool

[Fever · 8/10 · 6 September 2007]

The trouble with many actors that do only a particular type of film, is that once they go outside of their box, it's just too weird. This is true to Jim Carrey. We've become so accustomed to his comedy flicks that this throws us off guard. I kept waiting for him to crack jokes, but they never came. This is a true drama/thriller that keeps you guessing until the end.

Carrey plays a man who starts reading a book that more and more sound like it was written just for him. Then strange occurrences of the number 23 keep popping up and the story gets weirder and weirder. But trust me, stick with it--the twist is a jaw dropper.

I have to say it was a bit odd to see Carrey in the sex scenes-- I kept waiting for him to jump up and say "ssssssmokin!!!" I thought overall it was a great movie.

Average, but fair

[souldavilucker · 7/10 · 23 September 2021]

Film full of tension and mystery. Worth watching for the beautiful performance of Jim Carrey. If i could assign a custom note it would be 23.

If Your Toilet Could Write...

[arieliondotcom · 1/10 · 1 March 2008]

If your toilet could write, it would write better scripts than this. Ned, the Dog, Guardian of the Dead, protected and produced stuff that's less stinky than this. If only there were negative numbers to rate with.

A pretentiously "deep" film where Jim Carrey pretends to be real actor, and both fail miserably. A mysteriously psychic book that "Is just like my life" and supposedly like everyone else's (with murders, suicides, strange sex...Oh yeah, we all have those lives, don't we?) leads our "hero" into a convoluted trail of trying to free himself of obsession...no, finding a murderer...no solving a mystery...no getting a very large paycheck for a very lousy job.

It is painfully obvious that the writer thought he was writing something wonderfully deep, and painfully obvious that Carrey thought he was finding something to express his hidden serious side and make his dramatic acting "bones", but the result is just...well, painful.

I actually sat through the entire thing (though I must admit I TIVO'd it and could only take small doses at a time to avoid nausea, not from the violence but from the lousy "plot", such as it was) because I thought it would have a wonderful plot twist to somehow bring it all together like "12 Monkeys", one of my favorite films. That film is what this film dreams of being, a writing masterpiece where many pieces of a puzzle are mysteriously brought together and you gasp and say "Ah Ha!" at the same time. But the only resemblance between this and 12 Monkeys is that they both have numbers in the title and this is more like something monkeys...well, never mind. There is no such hope. This film which actually has humor in the beginning and makes you think it's going to be a comedy can never make up its mind what kind of movie it is. And you will wonder why you ever thought it was one.

Avoid it. In fact, scold anyone you know who admits seeing it. The single clever piece in the entire film is the last second, after the live action when you get a quote from Scripture that may have given the author the idea for the thing. But that's as close to inspired as anything ever comes in this thing. And expired would be a more appropriate word.

Far Better Story Than the Consensus Let On

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 30 September 2007]

Jim Carrey stars as a man who discovers a book with striking similarities to his own life. He becomes obsessed with the book and its fascination with the number 23. Eventually, he discovers the book is not a story at all but a confession of a real-life murder, and the second half of the film deals with him trying to find the author of the book (the killer).

When this came out in theaters, I was mildly interested in it. More for the number 23 than for the story or Jim Carrey. Numerology is an interesting thing, and while I don't believe in it I find it can be played out very well in films. This film is no exception -- the writer made sure to fully cover the obsession with the number as well as the rational explanation of how it can appear so often in the natural world. I appreciate the second part especially.

Many people, I think, were afraid of Carrey taking on a serious role. He does have a difficult time being perceived as serious by fans, and even I thought he seemed unnatural. Don't get me wrong -- "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is an amazing movie, and Carrey was wonderful in it. Here, too, he comes across as dramatic and dark -- a raw, sexual beast with a shady past. I never expected a Carrey of this magnitude and it's a nice change.

Tom Lenk shows up briefly, as a book store clerk. Every time I see Lenk I feel bad -- he always gets one or two lines in his movies, but never a leading role. Please, Hollywood, this is a funny man. If not a main character ,at least give hi ma supporting role that really adds to the story. If Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd can make movies where they just show up and make crack comments (thank you, Judd Apatow) then so can Lenk.

This movie has some twists and turns and doesn't really pick up until they begin to track the killer. Even then, it twists and turns some more. I suppose some people could have predicted the ending or a few of the twists, but I didn't. And that really impressed me -- an ending that made sense and was not foreseen. Sure, some parts stretch the imagination and reality a little bit, but nothing seemed impossible.

I found this to be one of the better thrillers or semi-horror (if we use horror very loosely) films to come out in 2007. Over all, this has been a disappointing year. Other than, say, "Vacancy" I really wasn't all that impressed. So, this might be the drink of fresh water some people had been waiting for. I know I was pleasantly surprised and impressed, and I hope you will be, too.

I can find yet another loose connection to 23.

[lee_eisenberg · 6/10 · 29 July 2007]

OK, "The Number 23" features Jim Carrey in another dark role. This time, he plays dog catcher Walter Sparrow, feeling sort of uncomfortable with his job. His wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) gives him a book with the same title as the movie. It not only tells a story which seems eerily similar to Walter's life, but also identifies various things relating to 23. As Walter reads further, he begins to sink into madness, worrying that the number might be more than a number.

The movie has an interesting plot - I must admit, I never knew that all those things related to 23 - although it seems silly at times (now that I think about it, the ending was a little predictable). I mean, anyone can find numeric patterns if s/he searches hard enough, and it could just as easily be a complete delusion. But more than anything, I like the sinister setting and Carrey's nearly deadpan expression throughout the movie. It does make you wonder whether or not 23 might hold the answer to anything in your own life. Worth seeing, if only once.

Oh, and the other loose connection to 23? The movie was filmed in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Cocoa Beach was the setting for "I Dream of Jeannie". "IDOJ" star Barbara Eden's birthday is August 23.