Jim Carrey's interesting slide into Madness: The Number 23
Written: Mar 17 '07 (Updated Apr 15 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 23
Cons: 23
The Bottom Line: This movie had 23 many strong points, but 23 23 ultimately 23 it is just 23 average.232323
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| shopaholic_man's Full Review: The Number 23 |
Jim Carrey tries on another serious role for Joel Schumachers psychological thriller The Number 23. Carrey plays Walter Sparrow. Walter has a peaceful life, he is married to a beautiful understanding woman, Agatha (Virginia Madsen) and he has a son, Robin (Logan Lerman). He likes his job with Animal Control and takes care of rounding up stray animals. The traditional Carrey persona is evident in the beginning as Carrey makes cat meowing noises as a woman walks by walking her dog. He starts to tell us in voice over narration how his life went sour.
23 Story
On December 23 (it's all about the number 23), he didn't return the affections of his boss at a Christmas party, and ever since, she has given him hard assignments. Today, his birthday, he ends up assigned to track down a dog that has gotten loose, and ends up bitten. Because of this, he is late to meet his wife, and she uses the time to pick up a book, The Number 23 and the obsession into madness begins. Hey, there are 23 letters in shopaholic-man and my real name combined! As Walter (Carrey) reads the book he notices parallels between the unknown authors life and his own. These are shot in beautiful dream like sequences which for me showed what director Joel Schumacher is capable of. I enjoyed the way the story unfolded just watching it. His use of lighting, camera angles and flow made the story narratives fascinating. There are 23 categories in epinions database! The author of the book started to become obsessed with the number 23, noticing how many things added up to the number 23. (this is my 23rd review this month). Soon, he narrates his life as an adult detective meeting up with femme fatales and eventually a slide into madness and murder. This is the month of March, that has 5 letters in it, 2 + 3!, 23! At this point of the film, Sparrow himself becomes completely obsessed to the point where we doubt his sanity. I saw this film on the 6th, and today is the 17th!, That makes 23!
He starts to try to find the identity of the author of the book, listed only as Topsy Kretts. Is Sparrow truly mad? Is the book a confession of a murder? Is the book a plea to find a murderer? My guitar has one neck and 22 frets 23!
Influences and 23 Thoughts
I did enjoy the film, the idea of obsession with a number and the way the story unraveled was fascinating to watch until it began to unwind near the end. Actually I should say that the way it wrapped up wasn't satisfactory to me, you may like it. The ending just didn't fit with the overall theme of the movie. Nevertheless, the obsession with numbers is not a new theme. Aranosky's Pi comes to mind as a great film on one man's obsession with 3.14. Neither is mental illness, I was also reminded of A Beautiful Mind where John Nash's deductions and reasonings started to fall apart. Overall The number 23 has a very Film Noir feel to it, reminicent of Angel Heart or The Ninth Gate, both films in which a mild mannered protagonist must investigate things which aren't always what they seem to be. The 9th Gate starred Johnny Depp who has done over 23 films!
Acting Carrey, appearing in his 23rd film here, did a great job of portraying other than slack jawed comedy, you could truly get an underlying portrait of madness and malevolence within his character. Despite my overall assessment of the film being average, I thought Carrey was very good.
Virginia Madison was also outstanding as Mrs. Sparrow, and a character from the book that she bought. However, in real life, I think she would have had her husband committed near the beginning of the film when he began to become completely obsessed.
Direction Well, I've already told you I loved Schumacher's cinematography tricks here, let me tell you what I didn't like. The symbology is a bit too in your face here. We see The Evil Dog TED many times and knives many times. Its like he was shouting LOOK at the SYMBOLS! Also in some spots the film noticably dragged, it is clear that the film was intended to be a taut pscychological thriller, but in some spots we have too much time to think how implausible some elements of the film are.
The film's funniest line Officer, I'm not crazy, I came here because of the message I got when I circled the 23rd word on every 23rd page of this book!
Summary The Number 23 isn't the best film on the descent into Madness, but it was a good one, and I did enjoy watching it. Carrey and Madsen give depth to their roles, and its nice to see Carrey do roles that don't involve physical comedy. Well, its 9:14 now, so I need to go get some coffee. 9 and 14, that's 23!
Three Stars
Recommended:
Yes
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