The Number 23 review

DVD of the week – Jim Carrey gets scary in his latest DVD to hit shop shelves, and while it hasn’t scored the illusive 10 out of 10, we won’t be looking at the numbers two and three in the same light again.

After finding fame in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask, Canada’s finest Jim Carrey abandoned the zany typecasting to receive critical acclaim for more serious roles, including the brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Number 23 adds to the actor’s growing repertoire in this freaky psychological mystery crossed with comic book film noire. While, admittedly, it hasn’t been as well-received as many of Carrey’s oddball roles, The Number 23 will undoubtedly mess with your mind.

For conspiracy theorists, the number 23 is believed to be synonymous with evil, and as the opening credits roll with significant dates from history that all add up to, yep you guessed it, 23, the tone is set for the numerical phobic’s worst nightmare. But if you don’t rely on a calculator to work out exactly how many fingers and toes you have, you’ll find that while the digits add-up throughout the 95-minute film, the storyline’s plausibility does not.

Dog-catcher Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) finds his life changes dramatically when he starts reading a detective novel which bears uncanny similarities to his own life. Growing increasingly paranoid about the magical number 23 and his relationship to the detective ‘Fingerling’ in the book, Sparrow embarks on a mission to solve the murder at the centre of the paperback’s plot. Sniffing out clues, the mystery slowly unravels to a shocking conclusion. While we’ve been told that others have seen the ‘twist’ coming a mile off – it might have been all the mental arithmetic we were trying to do or just that we were a bit slow off the mark – we did not.

Supported adequately, although not spectacularly, by son Robin (Logan Lerman) and wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen), director Joel Schumacher’s The Number 23 left us making calculations of birthdays, multiplied by phone numbers, divided by the amount of popcorn left in the bottom of the bucket, but as Carole Vorderman would probably agree – you can pretty much make anything add up to 23.

While the concept is genuinely intriguing and Carrey offers yet another worthwhile performance, Schumacher’s thriller could, and should, have been better. Instead it scores a decent six – which, if you believe the theory, you will already have worked out is two multiplied by three. Scary.

Film: The Number 23
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman
Classification: 15
Release date: 23 July 2007
Available from: Amazon for £9.98

Michelle Byrne
23 July 2007