Review of The Number 23 (2007) by Tarek F — 15 May 2014

"The Number 23" Review:

This role for Jim Carrey is haunting. In most of his films throughout his career, he is comedic, energetic, and self-centered. Maybe it is the adjective self-centered-someone who only cares about his beliefs as he did in "The Majestic", and is so focused on his haunting beliefs in "The Number 23.".

Joel Schumacher's thriller, "The Number 23", has Carrey to be extremely eerie. Medium-length black hair, fancy sports jacket, Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, a dogcatcher who gets bitten by a god. It is his birthday and he meets his wife Agatha Sparrow (Virginia Madsen) in a bookstore. Her present to him is a book, which is titled, "The Number 23." It is a blood-red-covered novel. The synopsis of the book is that it is a murder mystery with a continuous numerology around, "The Number 23.".

Walter begins to become captivated by the novel. He begins to dream the story, and he also starts to find elements of his life that can be placed around, "The Number 23.".

Matters get out of hand as Walter reaches to being almost finished with the novel. He wants to find the author and the right hotel, with the right room number, and that number is "23.".

A hotel being involved is where the film becomes cheesy. Walter sees himself being a character in the novel; his history is accurate to the events in the book. From his shocking realizations, Carrey portrays lust, violence, and artifacts (all in his dreams) that make him belief the psychotic author chose him.

"I once read that the only philosophical question that matters, is whether or not to commit suicide...I guess that makes me a philosopher," said by Carrey at one point in the film. The quote is intended for shock value, but instead, it is not precise. "The Number 23" brings an order of horrific events (not in chronological order) in the life of a dogcatcher; in the sense that the dogcatcher is innocent, the elements towards it, is a wreck.

For Schumacher, "The Number 23" just seemed like another opportunity for him to do a film with Jim Carrey. Since the last film that Carrey starred in (which was directed by Schumacher) was "Batman Forever" in 1995. "The Number 23" lacks in events, and has many overrated imaginations that are vast in color, but does not sum up to where the novel or the movie is leading. It is a thrill ride of confusion.

"The Number 23" is a film that I like somewhat. Schumacher-who directs the popular series on Netflix, "House of Cards" (which deals with corruption in politics) is doing well. I will say though, films revolving around something serious works better for Schumacher, because he is great with working with actors on being serious in a role, but horror is just not the style that fits him.