In The Number 23, Jim Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, an animal control official who becomes obsessed with a murder mystery novel (called The Number 23) which he believes to be based on his own life. The more he reads, the more paranoid he becomes. He begins seeing the number 23 everywhere. His street address, for example, is 1814. Don't see it? Get this: 18 + 1 + 4 = 23. Also, 1 + 8 + 14 = 23. And if that's not enough, 18 + 14 = 32, which is 23 backwards. Impressed? Me neither.
The basic concept of this movie - which seemed, to put it colloquially, really fucking cool in the trailer - is a bit of a stretch when you actually watch the feature film. At multiple major dramatic plot points, the ridiculousness of finding the number 23 in the most contrived of unexpected places caused the audience to break into hysterics. The movie succeeds when the characters themselves reference their own irrationality, but these short lines seem to come from the actors, as if they know they're fighting against a terrible script that director Joel Schumacher takes way too seriously.
For all its emphasis on the number 23, the plot ends up being about something completely different, and the twist ending takes about 20 minutes to reveal and fully explain. The entire last act of the movie is simply an explanation of the first two. And after all that, there are still at least 23 things that make no sense at all. And while the number keeps showing up in unexpected places, it doesn't actually do anything. It doesn't propel the plot - it just leads Sparrow into an endless spiral of paranoia that is finally explained away by one of the most conventional endings in the mystery thriller genre. If you want to see some numbers with a real mystery behind them, watch Lost.
Then again, 23 is one of the Lost numbers. So are 8 and 15, which add up to 23. And I was born in 1985, which adds up to 23.
Oh my God. It's everywhere. And yet, it means just as much in real life as it does in this movie: nothing.
Only one question remains: was Schumacher trying to get a 23% approval rating on rottentomatoes.com? That might not be the best for him, but it would be pretty fucking cool.
