Director and writer Joel Schumacher was a filmmaker who contributed many beloved movies to the world before his passing in 2020. Among celebrated gems like The Lost Boys, The Wiz, and St. Elmo's Fire, there were also duds like Batman & Robin. And then in 2007, there was The Number 23. This film is a psychological crime thriller starring Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen, as well as a young Logan Lerman, and watching it is such a ride. It's a film with a very strange base premise, that doesn't work on so many levels, but it really is almost so bad it's good.
The film follows an animal control officer, played by Carrey, named Walter Sparrow. One day his wife Agatha (Madsen) buys him a book called The Number 23 written by an author named Topsy Kretts. The book is about a detective named "Fingerling" who becomes obsessed with The 23 Enigma which has devastating effects. Sparrow feels that many aspects of the book mimic his own life, and begins to suspect that the book was actually about him. Unfortunately, the book begins to run his life and he too falls victim to "the curse of 23."
The problems with the movie start with the plot in general. The 23 Enigma is a real thing. It's the belief that everything in life can be connected to the number 23. This is actually an extension of the Law of Fives, which states that everything in life is related to the number five, which the number 23 does as 2+3=5. People talk about this theory and it is an interesting thing to look into, but to base a whole film off of someone becoming so obsessed with it that it takes over his whole life, is a little much. A lot of the film is spent with the characters just taking random things and random numbers, connecting them to the number 23. People love conspiracy theories, but stretching a whole movie out of it without making the plot too stupid is undoubtedly hard, and this movie does struggle with that. It can come off kind of repetitive and like it drills the point in too hard.
Though the plot was surely hard to work with, the writing and structure are a whole terrible beast all on their own. The dialogue in this movie is simply just very strange. It could be how it's written, it could have been Carrey's performance, but a lot of the things the main character says in this film will actually make viewers laugh out loud at its ridiculousness. This is not good, because the tone of the film is attempting to be very dark and very serious.
The story structure is also very weird. There seems to be little to no buildup to the big twist at the end, which is very predictable, and then when it does come the explanation for it and the fallout makes no sense at all. There are also scenes from the fictional book in the movie that play out in this neo-noir kind of edgy way, and it's just awkward to watch.
So much of this movie is just so unexplainably weird. That's the main problem. It's done in a way that doesn't seem logical, and comes off a lot more funny and awkward than thrilling or intriguing. The plot doesn't make sense, the characters react to a plot in a way that doesn't make sense, the acting is strange, and it's full of weird direction choices and ridiculous character names. When the author of the book is revealed to be named "Topsy Kretts", which of course sounds like "Top Secrets" when read aloud, it just induces a laugh. All of this combined makes for a wildly uncomfortable watch. So many things that happen throughout the film, are just really perplexing. And not in a good way. They make the viewer think, but it's not because they're intrigued. It's because they're confused.
The Number 23 is very much a badly made film. Critics tend to agree, with it only having an 8% on Rotten Tomatoes and it was also nominated for multiple Razzies the year it came out. That doesn't make it a bad watch. It's still fun to put on with a few friends and have a laugh. A film not being good, doesn't mean it's not entertaining. It's also just so perplexing and confusing, it's almost a whole film experience as opposed to just watching a movie. And there are a lot of people online who genuinely love this movie and think it's good. That's fine too as everyone has different tastes, but the majority does tend to stick to the opinion that this is kind of a failure of a movie. At the very least, it's very unique and doesn't feel generic at all so it does have that going for it. Sometimes though, being a bit more conventional isn't a bad thing.