A great waste of talent at a production cost not merited

Rating: 2/10 (3 March 2007)

Twists and turns abound in this wannabe thriller with no thrills and nothing scary. Great acting by Jim Carey and Virginia Madsen, although there was no chemistry at all. There wasn't a clue or character that was properly threaded, which makes one wonder how a great filmmaker like Joel Schumaker could be so careless. All told, this film tries to be "too smart" for its own good, and leaves the viewer very unsatisfied on every front whether you go to be "scared", "entertained" or to be a detective and figure it out. Don't bother, as the filmmaker will explain it all to you in the last 5 minutes, and you'll walk away no doubt muttering, "who cares?" or "you must be kidding..." or "then why did that character do xyz... Better yet, rent the 2003 film "Identity" starring John Cussack, Amanda Peet, Ray Liotta, Rebecca De Mornay and Afred Molina et.al. which is a much better attempt at a psychological thriller using numerology with twists and turns and for the exact same production budget of $30M. My take: "The Number 23" should have been made for $5M or less with the same cast working at reduced rates with a filmmaker that was prepared to try a little harder to make the story gratifying to the audience without insulting the film-goer's intelligence or wasting its money.