Concept wasted

Rating: 4/10 (21 February 2007)

What seemed to be initially an intriguingly good premise, as its trailers and posters show off, is never realized by the film itself which is incoherent and predictable. Jim Carrey works to the best of his acting range to make his character work, and director Joel Schumacher creates a brooding yet ultimately lackluster envelope of suspense.
Walter Sparrow (Carrey) is a dogcatcher who stumbles upon "The Number 23," an obscure novel written by an individual who became obsessed with the mentioned number. As he begins to read it, he realizes that the novel shares much connection with his past and that the number 23 seems to be less a random number than, uh, a governing universal entity. Like his birthday is on February 3 (2/3!), he and his wife met when they were 23, Kurt Cobain was born and died in years where each digit summed up would add to 23. You know, stuff hoax emails are made of.
The film possesses some semblance of creativity, and with so much diabolical randomness going on in the movie, it's easy for one to think the story is far from simple. But the truth is, it isn't complicated at all - it's just to arbitrarily blathering. Partly because the film can't decide whether to take its subject with a heavy hand, or with a tongue planted on its cheek. Partly because it plods a lot without much going on. Mostly because it may be the Fernley Phillips' script, which proceeds to a final act that comes as a letdown after all the intensity that the first two acts had put forth.
Overall, the film does have a few worthy amount of cheap suspense but the flaws far outweigh them. Viewing it seems to just add up to an ultimate disappointment.