Pallid "Twilight Zone" meets "Memento" by way of "The Shining" thriller; Carrey over-acts a storm

Rating: 6/10 (26 February 2007)

THE NUMBER 23 (2007) ** Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Rhona Mitra, Michelle Arthur, Mark Pellegrino. Carrey acts up a storm in this middling thriller about an Everyman whose life begins to downward spiral when his wife (Madsen) purchases a second-hand book as a birthday present which begins to take a life of its own with the mysterious power of the titular pre-occupation/obsession that brings him to the brink of insanity. Filmmaker Joel Schumacher continues his ham-fisted approaches with no subtlety what-so-ever, making things bleaker and darker than necessary in this pallid "Twilight Zone" meets "Memento" by way of "The Shining" with little to be scared about except to see a comic actor lose his footing in a poorly conceived attempt to stretch his dramatic muscles.