Good heavens. Whatever convinced Joel Schumacher and Jim Carrey that this film was a worthy undertaking? And I use the term ‘film’ loosely.
An astonishingly insipid and confused story has so many holes you could make it into a bridal veil.
It is about a man’s obsession with a labored and repetitive numerology premise that goes nowhere but still takes a long time to explain. The number 23 seems to be the reason for everything.
The screenwriter literally takes any word or number and twists, tortures and bends it to make 23. Isn’t that numeric abuse?
Backwards forwards, adding subtracting, etc, etc ad nauseum . I bet you could do that with 7or 3 or 19 or 54. Big hairy deal, anyway.
So not only did the subject matter infuriate me with its leadenness, the film as a film is shockingly inept. From misspellings on secret documents (‘leacherous’) to red herrings and twists that the characters don’t get until twenty minutes after the audience does, it was all I could do not to yell at poor Jim Carrey.
All he did was sign on to play this poor demented fool for his Batman director.
So imagine how disturbed I was to find that Carrey is fixated on the number, i.e. his company’s name is JC23. P-u-h-l-e-e-s-e!
Moreover, we are told that this is Schumacher’s 23rd film.
What movie flack stayed up late dreaming up this palaver and giving it significance? Give him/her a 23-thousand dollar raise. And all the cheese he/she can eat! Twenty-three pounds should do it.
There are loads of unintentional howlers, probably 23 at least. If not 46. I wish I’d written them down to share with you, dear reader, but I was too bored. I was busy thinking about the 23 errands I had to run today and the 23 things I had to put in the laundry.
Twenty three times, I crossed my legs and shifted position. I could not get comfortable because the film kept on playing and never moved ahead narratively or emotionally.
Of the twenty-three people in the screening room, at least 2.3 laughed loudly at parts not meant to inspire laughter.
You have to wonder at what point the filmmakers knew they had a dud.
When the editor suddenly went berserk and turned the movie into a thrash metal band rock video? Or Virginia Madsen trying desperately, or so it seemed, not to break out laughing? There must have been at least 23 indicators. Or maybe 19 plus 4. Or 11 plus 12.
All I know for sure is that there is a lot of counting and many people out there in the audience don’t care to do math at the movies.
Editor’s note: The number of letters in author Anne Brodie’s name add up to ten – exactly 13 less than 23.
The Number 23
35mm thriller
Opens wide USA February 23. MPAA: Rated R for violence, disturbing images, sexuality and language.
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