The Number 23-
This month's movie, The Number 23, has been a sort of joke around the newspaper office. First of all, while most everyone loves Jim Carrey, the majority of his serious outings have been lackluster to say the least. Couple this with the fact that the movie is centered entirely around extremely far fetched equations that "prove" the number twenty three is linked to all evil, and most hopes for this to be a good movie are dashed. Many are probably asking, how is twenty three evil? It turns out the answer is simple. Two divided by three is .666. Either way the question still remains. Was The Number 23 a steaming pile of garbage? Unfortunately, for a reviewer who was looking for something to rip apart this month, the answer is no.
The movie opens with a pretty "trippy" and captivating display of the star power in the movie. You jerk towards and past different pages of a book with bloodied ink covered pages. Flashing on and off the pages, along with repetitions of 23, are different dates, equations, and names that all somehow add up to 23. Needless to say, the opening is pretty cool. The film truly begins with Walter Sparrow, portrayed by Jim Carrey, sitting in his dog catching van waiting for his shift to end. You see, today is Walters birthday, and he would really love to get home to his wife and son. On the evening of his birthday, his wife finds an old and tattered red book simply entitled "The Number 23." His wife swears that he'll love the book, so of course, he reads it.
Throughout the film, Walter essentially reads the book while the theater screen shows you the action of the narrative in dark and blurred film noir-esque sequences. This is when you find that while Jim Carrey plays Walter, he also plays the protagonist of the novel, known only as "Fingerling." Fingerling is a dark minded detective with a stubbly beard and some crazy cool tattoos. Fingerling encounters a girl who explains to him the significance of 23, how it killed her father, and how it is out to get her. Fingerling soon becomes obsessed with the number, and it slowly drives him mad. As Walter dives further and further into the book, he begins to draw countless similarities between himself and Fingerling. Soon Walter too is driven to insanity by the number.
From the first moment of the film I was confused by the character of Walter. He was a funny, happy-go-lucky guy much like Carrey's many other characters. Wasn't this supposed to be a more serious role for the predominantly "funny" actor? I was pleasantly surprised to see when the adult Fingerling finally made his debut that Carrey had pulled off not only a serious character, but a dark swearword spouting one at that. It's not that I just love swear words, it was that I was happy to see this new side of Carrey. It showed me that he is truly a good actor.
The rest of the film was very entertaining as well, constantly leaving you wondering how the book "knew" so much about Walter. Looking back, the conspiracy theory that is the number 23 put together with a book that knew the protagonist's life makes me think that this movie was the illegitimate love child of "The Da Vinci Code" and "Stranger Than Fiction". Regardless, while you probably won't be enthralled, the movie does a good job of stringing you along, keeping you guessing as to exactly how the book "knows" so much about Walter.
To be honest, the only negatives I could find with the movie were the ending and the extreme overuse of 23. I get that 23 "is linked to everything" and is almost the main character of the movie, but when Walter decides to mail twenty three boxes of packing peanuts to the suspected author near the end of the movie, I couldn't help but start laughing hysterically. The ending was a total letdown. I'm not going to give away anything, but the fact that the film had actually set up a fairly interesting mystery, only to use such a clichéd ending felt like a copout.
When the film was over, I began looking for 23 in my life, and found that it was everywhere. My birthday, August 15 (8/15), added up to 23. The videogame I had rented from Blockbuster was 23 days late. My social security number…didn't add up to 23. Oh well, I guess we can't all be numerically linked to the devil.
All in all, The Number 23 was an entertaining "psychological thriller" that serves as a good time waster and conversation topic. If you're looking for a more seriously toned film this month, give this one a try. You never know, you may be linked to the source of all evil in the world. Or you may just end up having a bit of fun at the movie theater.
Night everyone. Keeping commenting and have a good day/night/ whatever the hell! ^_^
