The Number 23 Jim Carrey's new movie, The Number 23, reminded me of the paperback books that I used to buy at Sage every Sunday. When I was growing up Sage was the department store that was two-thirds closed on Saturday and then opened up completely on Sunday. Because of the blue laws at the time, it was the only place on a Sunday you could go buy new records and books. I spent many a Sunday looking at the records there and the racks of paperback books. On my very limited shopping list were the latest singles on Apple, with it's very cool green apple label, which were the Beatles as solo artists since the Beatles had recently broken up. Also on the list were science fiction and horror books that were there by the dozens and reachable within my small budget. Robert Block wrote dozen of books full of short stories with the trick ending, for example "Pleasant Dreams", "Tales in a Jugular Vein" and "Fear Today, Gone Tomorrow", and also around were the Hitchcock anthologies of the same. The Number 23 could have come straight from one of those books, the movie sets up a situation, twists the knife, and then comes the trick ending, or at least that is what the movie tries to do.
To give a very limited plot summary Walter Sparrow, played by Jim Carrey, finds he is haunted by the number 23. If at this point you are saying to yourself, ya know, that doesn't sound all that exciting a plot device, the thought occurred to me as I watched this film. There haven't been a lot of news paper items of people dying from an attack by the number 47 lately have there? To their credit, the director, Joel Schumacher, and the rest of the crew give it a good shot. He previously directed Veronica Guerin and Phone Booth, both of which are worth tracking down (and The Phantom of the Opera which you should avoid looking for). The movie has a parallel plot device which is introduced into the film when Walter Sparrow reads a novel, and then imagines himself as the lead character in the novel. Wisely this is kept to just the right amount of time, being interesting but doesn't take us too far away from the main plot of the movie. It doesn't swamp the movie. The 2nd plot is shot in a much darker moodier fashion which works well with the subject matter.
  The movie only has a few characters, and the acting is never less than interesting. Jim Carrey has so much pent up energy it looks like he will just explode. You can imagine Carrey taking a leap and playing a part where he is completely evil, something he is not here. Even in this movie, part of the fun of this movie is watching Carrey being frustrated with various situations in the movie and his reaction to them, though the comedy is kept on a very low key. Virginia Madsen does an excellent job of keeping up with him. She pulls of the neat trick and of looking like your next door neighbor and a movie star at the same time.
One problem with the movie is the ending, which I will not spoil for you, and another is the length of the movie. The ending is somewhat anticlimactic. Even at 95 minutes, it felt like to me they were stretching the plot out with little real payoff, but I didn't really feel this way till towards the end of the movie. The first half is by far the stronger part and keeps you on the edge of your seat (thanks mainly to Jim Carrey), even with the shaky premise of the number 23 chasing you around. This movie was a miss but it is an interesting miss. You can smell a really good movie in there trying to escape.
You can write James Harper at movielover77061@yahoo.com |
