The Number 23

I’m drinking a Mountain Dew right now. Mountain has 8 letters. Dew has 3 letters. The can has 12 ounces of deliciousness. 8 + 3 + 12 = 23. TWENTY-THREE!!!!!! Can you guess what movie I’m going to review for you today? Hint: it’s not 28 Weeks Later…I haven’t seen that yet.

The Number 23 is a critically maligned film that came out a few months ago. It achieved a score of 8% on Rotten Tomatoes famed (and flawed) tomatometer. It has, as of today, received only 14 “fresh” reviews out of 175 total reviews. In other words, this movie is feculent mess. So why, you may ask, did I waste 95 minutes of my life watching it? That’s the way I roll, beeeyatch! I like bad movies. And, as it sometimes turns out, this movie was not as bad as the critics made it out to be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s terrible. It’s just not that terrible.

The film is set up in a basic thriller format with a few twists. There are some flashbacks and some voiceover narrative. Joel Schumacher has a great eye for the material, using interesting lighting techniques, shadows, and flourishes of color to set a dark mood for the story. Most of the scenes in the movie had an interesting, directorial touch. A lot of people give Schumacher grief for ruining the Batman series. His entries (Batman Forever and Batman & Robin) are universally derided by fans of the latex man-bat. Personally, I think he was a good match for the series…after all, he is gay and so is Batman.

Jim Carrey plays an animal control officer named Walter Sparrow. He is a family man, married to Agatha (Virginia Madsen) and has a son named Robin. Robin Sparrow. That’s fucking ridiculous. Walter constantly refers to Agatha as “Ag” which too often sounds like “Egg”. Sparrows, robins, eggs, another character named Kyle Finch, one named Dr. Phoenix…I’m going crazy. It must be the number 23. I’m seeing it everywhere. So is Walter Sparrow, after his wife introduces him to a book called The Number 23 written by some dumbass with the name Topsy Kretts. Yes, that’s a ridiculous name; it kind of sounds like top secrets if you say it right. That’s part of the plot. Walter starts seeing a lot of similarities in the story to his own life (stuff about a neighbor’s dog and a dead woman). The main character in the book is some dude named Fingerling. Fingerling thinks he’s a detective. He meets and has sex with lots of hot chicks with names like Suicide Blonde (INXS), the Lady in Red (that other song), and Fabrizia. He has a rad tribal tattoo. He wears eye shadow. In one scene, I swear he looks like Keith Richards. In real life, Walter is on a downward spiral due to his obsession with the number 23. In the book, Fingerling is involved in some kind of murder mystery. The movie’s plot gets pretty confusing at this point so I won’t go into any more details.

Overall, the film is well-acted except for a couple of embarrassingly bad Jim Carrey-in-anguish moments. Virginia Madsen is solid, as usual. As I said before, the direction and style are pretty impressive. The film has a definite artsy quality. The writing is decent. I checked out the making-of featurette and the writer seems like a nice guy with some cool ideas. I’m just not sure all of them translated well to the screen. I wasn’t too bored while watching this movie, and that’s a good sign for me. The plot kept me interested enough to want to find out how the thing ended. I wasn’t a big fan of the ending, but it worked.

Now it’s time for some fun with the number twentyfuckingthree. Jim Carrey has 9 letters in his name. Joel Schumacher has 14 letters in his name. 9 + 14 = 23. Virginia Madsen has 14 letters in her name. Jim Carrey has 9 letters in his name. 9 + 14 = 23. I will be 32 this year. The year is 2007. 32 – (2 + 0 + 0 + 7) = 23. 32 is also 23 reversed. I’m doubly screwed. I am 6’5” tall. There are seven members in my immediate family. (6 X 5) – 7 = 23. My favorite band is Wilco. Wilco is the military call-name for the letter W. W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet.

If you’re interested in more information about the number 23 phenomenon, go here. Also, check out the Wiki article here. If, after checking out those links, you think this type of crap has any significance, you should read Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer. Thank you.