Watching this film you should ponder -- why doesn’t Jim Carrey want to do comedies anymore? Instead, audiences are left with stranger and stranger dramatic roles from this former king of humor. In this dark, psychological thriller, Carrey gamely tries to play a morose man who has no close attachments but his immediate family. The director, Joel Schumacher’s (“8mm“, “Batman & Robin“), half-hearted attempts to blend humor into the main character’s role are misplaced, making Carey seem to have lost his ability to be funny. What that leaves the audience with is a weird, hard-to-believe story, that only really sparks some interest near the end when Carey‘s character starts to lose his mind.
Jim Carrey is Walter Sparrow, a brooding man who works as a dog catcher, and has a wife and a son . His wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen; “Firewall”) buys him a blood red colored book called “The Number 23” for him on his birthday. Once he starts reading the book, he becomes obsessed with the story of a detective called Fingerling. Fingerling becomes obsessed with the number 23, seeing conspiracies everywhere, and slowly begins to lose his mind. Sparrow sees himself in Fingerling and also becomes obsessed with the number 23. Rather quickly, Sparrow life spins out of control, as he tries to make sense of the book and find the secrets behind it.
Madsen, together with Logan Lerman - who plays the couple’s son, bring energy to their roles and the movie as a whole, while Carey is woefully miscast. Schumacher, known more for his failures than his successes as a director, allows Carrey to go off the deep end too soon in the story. There is no sense of normalcy for Sparrow, before he spirals out of control. It will also takes some time to get used to the narrative and edits back and forth between when Carrey is reading and what is happening in the real world.
The story does become more interesting once Sparrow’s family takes a more active role in investigating the mysteries behind the book. This helps give Carrey’s character less of a feeling of estrangement and grounds the audience in the idea that he doesn’t have to deal with this alone. There is an unexpected twist at the end, that does give fuel to the story, but an overly melodramatic end dissipates most of the energy built up. “The Number 23” is nothing special and will try your patience at the beginning, but if you are in a dark and somber mood and want to see Carrey further annihilate his career, perhaps its worth a peek, for curiosity’s sake.
Rated R for violence, disturbing images, sexuality and language.
