The NumberThe Number 23
New Line Cinema
Joel Schumacher
Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Danny Huston, Logan Lerman and Rhona Mitra
Emily:
Hmmm, what to say? This being my first movie review, I feel compelled to conjure up scads of witty quips.
I must say that the first part of the movie got off to a bit of an odd start. Imagine deep voiced narration; time rewinding itself, Jim Carrey telling a bulldog a bedtime story, and a used bookstore. All this leads Walter Sparrow (Carrey) to “The Number 23”, a blood-red trade paperback. Sparrow starts to see eerie similarities between his past and the life being described in the book. He becomes obsessed with the number… you guessed it… 23.
Spooky. ish.
I must say that the film sustained enjoyable suspense overall.
Until the end.
As is often the case when there’s lots of money behind a movie.
This particular example of big budget Hollywood had some great design elements. The book-world is shot in some pretty stunning lighting, all the real world characters show up there with better hair, or tattoos, Et. Et. Some great uses of the color red, good performances by all cast members, interesting twist there at the end…. but… lacks that “I don’t know what”, as the French say (except they say it in French).
And now, because my husband has urged not to write a novel about this movie: My final analysis.
A resounding, good-natured, “meh.”
Cale:
Okay, I’m all for Jim Carrey challenging himself by trying to play “regular” people in movies (ie: Eternal Sunshine, The Majestic) but this movie really could have used a beefy-er lead male. Sex scenes and Jim Carrey just creep me out, maybe it’s just me. Other than Jimmy-boy, and the punch-drunk suicide blonde in his dream/book/other life, the cast is great. The music, art direction, even Schumacher seems to be getting it. Now, where the money came from to make the picture is something else. Those dirty little producers’ fingerprints all over the negatives like the number 23 on the walls of that scummy little hotel room. Everytime we start to buy into this 23 conspiracy mindset, we’re overcome by this strange feeling that the producers are trying to make us think of the number 23 as a scary monster lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on the hero everytime he walks into a room without turning on the lightswitch. All in all, if you make it through the obvious Se7en rip-off opening, and the oddly directed first couple scenes between the family, you’ll be fine through the rest of the movie and may not even notice the clichés. But when the plot thickens, and thickens, until it’s a fat cat in a suit telling you, “Lord of the Rings was 3 hours long, we got time for one more plot twist, come on!”, just remember: For most of the people renting movies out there, rational thinking really bums them out. You have to ask yourself, are you entertained? So shut up. Echoing my wife’s good natured “meh.”
