Doesn't add up (hehe)

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2007)

Even when I first saw the trailers to this movie I got the notion that someone had seen Aronofsky's "Pi" and had thought: "That plot could make for a good mystery movie for a popcorn audience." So, the "The Number 23" was produced.
From the beginning the whole plot and the conspiracy theory around the number 23 seem too far fetched for the audience to actually be intrigued by it. As much as we would like to we never share Carrey's paranoia about that number.
Still, the movie is entertaining enough as long as it's running. Schumacher even manages to direct decently this time around. Sure, some of the detective scenes are a bit laughable and Jim Carrey - as great as he was in some of his more serious roles - is completely miscast here. The way he moves and looks sometimes is unintentionally funny.
That wasn't so much of a problem, though. The final solution and everything that followed, however, was. First we are turned off by the revelation of the mystery behind the book "The Number 23" and then a lot of painful blabbering follows that continue to make a joke of everything that happened before.
Like "The I Inside" Schumacher's movie starts out promising, but goes nowhere. I don't regret having seen it, though. It was a fun time. If you're just aware of the fact that the solution is not going to be anything mind-blowing, you should be able to enjoy yourself with "The Number 23".