The Number 23 Review

I had heard terrible things about The Number 23. Confusing ending, bad acting, dumb basis for a movie, and many, many other things. Being a true movie enthusiast, I had to see it just to cure my curiosity of why people gave it such bad reviews. After viewing the film, I'm delightfully surprised.

Plot: Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) finds a book that he seems to think is written about him. As he continues reading the book, more and more similarities arise all dealing with the number 23.

Before I get into the philosophy of this movie, I'll start with the basics. The acting was great and I thought Jim Carrey acted refreshingly well for being in a movie thats so different from his past hits. I was nervous at the fact that he was playing such a psychologically unwell character in a psychological thriller movie. His acting is what determines how the movie will flow and ultimately how good it will be. Of course, there are other factors that go into how good a movie is but, in my opinion, acting makes up a majority of it. Thankfully, Jim Carrey pulls his role off excellently. Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, and Danny Huston also put in good performances.

The directing is well done and the story flows along somewhat smoothly until the major plot twists begin happening. From there, it sort of bounces around but you never really lose track of what's going on. This movie is also very different in a way because, as Jim Carrey is reading "The Number 23" book, it's being acted out by him as an alternate persona and that adds a nice effect. It's almost like watching 2 movies at once, which I found to be a good thing and not as confusing as it sounds.

The logic of the number 23 is that it's tied into all events if calculated far enough. This is a very real set of logic so, if you're looking for more knowledge on the subject, search Google and you'll find all that you need. I've been reading about it for last hour while doing my own calculations and it's truly interesting. For the last hour I have been trying to calculate my name, date of birth, and anything else related to me, trying to find the number 23. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find 2 things:

I was born in 1985.

1 + 9 + 8 + 5 = 23

This review was written on the 12th of July, 2007.

12 - 7 + 2007 = 2012 | 20 + 1 + 2 = 23

Try adding the letters of your name (with the letter A being 1, and Z being 26) or your date of birth to see if you can come up with the number 23.

All in all, The Number 23 is a pretty good addition to Jim Carrey's repertoire. It's a movie that twists and turns and will have you thinking quite a bit. So check this movie out and begin seeing 23's everywhere like I have been.

MPAA Rating: R (for violence, disturbing images, sexuality and language)

Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes

Year: 2007

Rating(out of 10): 7.3

Side Note: Some of the violence in this movie is graphic. Even though there isn't much, I thought I'd warn you.