A laughable, incoherent mess. Jim Carrey is woefully miscast, and saying Virginia Madsen is underused would be an understatement. All that saves it from being a complete failure is some stylish cinematography and art direction. D+

told you so!
smug

It starts and ends kinda sucky, but the bulk of it is quite strong. The book's "story" is very well done and quite fascinating. I don't expect many to like it though. :o

Sometimes it looks pretty. If only it would keep it's mouth shut.

1/2*

The Number 23

I saw this in a almost sold out 250 seat theatre with a mix of young adults to thirtysomethings. I really was interested in the film going into it and had seen Jim Carey on a couple late night shows hyping it and he seemed pretty enthusiastic for it and the trailers had me interested as well. Now the film starts off with slow pacing introducing us to his life and the people in it. The film deals with his introduction to a book about the number 23 and his readings and musings about it and discovering links to himself because of it. The film had my attention early on but when the split stories began with the intro of fingerling as detective and leading up to the suicide blonde things began to head south. I did not like that girl's character and in fact some of the younger crowd laughed out loud at a couple of the scenes involving her dialogue. Then the story deepens after her death with him having nightmares and then researching a dead girl's grave and trying to trap the author who he thinks killed this girl. Anyway a bunch of uninteresting series of items then occur also involving a kind of twist upon twist which neither work and then we are subjected to another 15 minutes of flashback detailing that JC was the author and the killer. It eventually and thankfully ends with a explanation of how turning himself in to set the innocent guy free was the only to end the story and lastly we're left with some ridiculous throwaway quote. I thought the movie just failed on everything. The sound the acting and the waste of using virginia madsen and the decision of JC to even do this film to the poor story and lackluster direction of Joel Schumacher. This film has also made me determined to never ever see another film directed by this director ever again. He took a movie that was slightly interested and made it totally uninteresting. In addition I think the trailers were extremely misleading whereas people were coming into it thinking horror/thriller and ended with a mess of a weepy tense unsuspenseful drama. I only gave one film an F last year but I think I'm gonna be more strict with what I see since I'm paying for my movie choices and this deserves a total flat nothing but F.

Grade - F

**Save your Cash and DO NOT SEE this film unless you can see it for FREE and even then I'd seriously have to think if it was worth the TIME**

I can just feel the love for this film.

I'm still excited, with caution.

*Gulp* I thought it was a great movie, the best of the year thus far (closely followed by Breach and Bridge to Terabithia). It might not hold the crown for long, though, with Zodiac on the horizon. I found the story fascinating and loved the splashy, gothic visual style. Jim Carrey gave a great performance. Not his best ever, but great nonetheless. The supporting cast could've been utilized slightly more, but they were decent. I especially dug Lynn Collins as the Suicide Blonde. This reminds me of Stay, a movie most critics trashed, but I loved and placed on my top ten of 2005. I'm going to go with my heart and against the grain... and give The Number 23 a strong A.

I'll give you credit if you really think it's that great Gunslinger but out of the audience I saw it with I can sense that a small and I mean small minority of people would have graded it above a C if that. Your take on it is interesting nonetheless.

Yeah, sorry guys, but I'm also going against the grain here. I'm not even sure we saw the same film. I thought it was solid. The film oozes terrific art direction and cinematography, the performances are good (I thought Jim Carrey was perfect for the role, Virginia Madsen was underused, though) and the entire film kept me interested. The "story" in the film was intriguing, and the twist, although somewhat obvious, worked well (though not perfectly). The film isn't great or anything, but yeah, I enjoyed it.

B

Apparently not.

Did your audience laugh every time that damn dog showed up?

I thought the dog was a cool element.

Oh, definitely. I was cracking up when the dog showed up on the road and Jim Carrey was about to run it over.

Yeah, see. The whole movie was kind of like that.

As in, ridiculous and unintentionally funny. It wasn't anywhere near Wicker Man level, but I have to say the screenplay is among the worst in years, in my eyes.

Liked the film for many of the same reasons that others who liked it did: The cool visual style and use of music, Carrey's very convincing performance as a badass of sorts, and a plot that was different enough to keep me consistently intrigued. One of my favorite of the early year so far.

Grade - B+

Blah Blah Blah

The film was solid, its not a horror film, the acting is solid and so is the story. The final twist is very bleh, but apart from that its a very entertaining film. It no where near a horrible film.

Solid B, see the film for yourself, and once you realize its not a horror film, its a good thriiler

Dr. S. Leary... Maybe he could have been fleshed out a bit more.. I enjoyed the movie.. B.. Reminded me of The Usual Suspects...

Try reversing Dr. Leary's initials, just for grins...
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owlsly......

My stepsis said the twist ending reminded her too much of Secret Window.

I was kinda hoping that the twist was when he confronted his wife... That not only did she want to disguise her confession of murder, but also of being a lesbian....

.....

Joy

You see, I dont think the film was meant to be scary. More suspenseful, and yes the dog was hysterical when it showed up, at the the scene with the car anyway. I think it was meant as funny though.

I didn't plan on seeing this today and didn't plan on doing so until it came out on DVD. I'm glad I did. I thought this was a good character study disguised as a horror/thriller type film. I thought the story was interesting throughout and I enjoyed the performances. I even thought the Fingerling side of story was pretty good. There are a couple of unintentional laughs here and there (The appearance by the Dog everyone has brought up for one) but I thought the film worked well.

B

An utter disaster, and I've liked Schumacher's last couple of movies. D+

B-

Numerology is a fascinating subject. The whole idea that 23 can actually mean something is a bizaare concept, but one that is very captivating. I enjoyed the movie when it went off the deep end and inundated us with stats about the number 24. Think about 9/11....9/11/2001 adds up to 23, and some other famous deaths and such also have 23 attached to them. So that part of the film was intriguing. But the execution of the rest of the film was just okay. The ending was weak but I loved the dog parts.

6.5/10

Just crap!

F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F

This post is reserved for whenever I see the movie. I just wanted to make sure I had the 23rd reply.

Just a generally terrible movie. The 23 Enigma is actually kind of interesting, but this story so botched anything intriguing about it that I never want to see anything 23-related again. Carrey is absolutely terrible and nobody else even registers on the cast list. The direction and production design is admittedly nice at times, but it's so overused that it just becomes overblown. The attempt at noir in the backstory is laughable. The twist is terribly obvious and not even an attempt to be shocking is made when it's finally revealed. It's a dark, depressing, and genuinely unappealing film.