The worst thing

Rating: 3/10 (24 September 2007)

How nice of "The number 23"Explaining us everything before the movie is over, in case we didn't understand it; or is it that it was impossible to understand. Anyway, even considering the fact that the movie tries to explain itself, there's another fact that doesn't change: "The number 23" is a mess from beginning to end.
Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) finds a novel in one of those destined moments that we let through. He starts reading it and he becomes obsessed with itWell, the novel says it's 'a novel of obsession'. He narrates what he reads in the novel, but his character had started narrating his own life before; so there's a point in which the narration and the narrators mix up and if you analyze things logically, nothing makes senseMostly near the end of the movie.
Yes, Fernley Phillips' first screenplay has a premise we haven't seen before, but also yes; it uses the same tricks used in the films we have seen before. Is it true that we've not seen anything like "The Sixth Sense" since it premiered and everyone started copying or reformulating it? For almost ten years, movies similar in style have taken some cinematic licenses and worked (I'm not giving names), but others have exceeded the number of licenses, and turned into something like this film.
For me, "The number 23" is more than a mess and a bad film, it's also a disappointment. I'm a big fan of Jim Carrey and of director Joel Schumaher. The first one is one of my favorite actors and the second one has made, among other things, three very different movies I respect and admire: "Tigerland", "Veronica Guerin" and "Phone Booth". This movie is easily the worst thing they've done in their careers.
Carrey's narration is so unconvincing, so relaxed, as if he was doing "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" again. It's not that the movie doesn't help his performance; he doesn't understand his character, or his nature, and thus his performance fails. Maybe he thought that he was doing "Eternal sunshine" because a lot of shots are out of focus and he constantly wakes up in different states and places.
But "The number 23" is a different trip of the mind, and Matthew Libatique's beautiful photography (try to catch "The Fountain", you'll be amazed) might be the only good element wasted in the movie that goes back and forth from present time to a film-noir style of film-making, which Libatique captures perfectly.
Even if we wanted to, we couldn't even say that "The number 23" is an exercise of style, because there's an understood intelligence found in the screenplay that obliges us to follow the story attentively, although it's still mess; but there's nothing easier than realizing whether a script takes itself seriouslyThis one really does, and it makes it worse.
To finish up, this is not only the worst thing Carrey and Schumaher have done; also Virgina Madsen, and the rising Logan Lerman, and Danny Huston, who had been giving some good appearances. There's one good thing the movie does though, and that's making you want to find out about what the hell is up with number 23.