23, what a villainous number!

Rating: 6/10 (12 November 2007)

A thriller doesn't necessarily need a great plot in order to be thrilling; the execution tends to be more important, but when your lead villain is a two digit number, the film in question is likely to have some big problems on its hands. Rated purely on its structure and thriller elements, The Number 23 is actually not a bad film; but every time I stopped to think about what it is actually happening, it was impossible not to think about how ridiculous this film is. The plot focuses on Walter Sparrow, a man who finds himself being dragged into a nightmare after coming across a book called 'The Number 23'. The book, written by the enigmatic 'Topsy Krets', soon has Walter believing that it's all about his own life. It's not long before he realises that the number 23 is actually all over the place; his name adds to 23, his birth date includes the number 23, his house number is 23...etc etc. We then follow Walter as he develops his obsession and tries to get to the bottom of the mysterious book.
I can only speak for myself, but personally I wouldn't be too concerned if I noticed that a few things in my life added up to the same number. The silly plot could have been forgiven more easily if there was some underlying point to it all; and while it's somewhat explained at the end, overall I have to say that this film is both silly and pointless. That being said, the film is therefore unintentionally very funny, and despite the fact that it's very silly; The Number 23 is at least rather entertaining. Jim Carrey was great in The Truman Show and good in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, despite the film being rubbish and he's not bad in this; but the actor is clearly more suited to comedy, and I was a bigger fan of him before he started taking on 'serious' roles. The rest of the is very much secondary to Carrey, but I always enjoy seeing Virginia Madsen and Danny Huston is solid as usual. The much needed 'wrap up' ending doesn't really come; though we do get some explanation for it all. It doesn't make a lot of sense, which isn't a big surprise but in spite of all the problems; I can't hate this silly film too much.