A trying experience.

Rating: 3/10 (20 February 2007)

The Number 23 begins beautifully. The acting is excellent, the situation compelling, the cinematography gorgeous. But none of this saves the film from outstaying its welcome. There is an exact minute the movie becomes nothing more than excruciatingly dense exposition, like watching a lecture on film, and I am tempted to bring a stopwatch into it to discover if that minute relates in any way to the number 23, so that I can rest assured it was a self-conscious joke. I wish I could say it ran only 23 minutes longer than it should have, but I have a sneaking suspicion it ran on more like forty.
The Number 23 suffers from a lot of good ideas that never exactly come together, and a mystery with a reveal so obtuse and verbose you flash back to Fred, Daphne, and Velma and lament fondly that they got it over with so, so much quicker.