Reviews:
We won't make you circle every 23
rd letter of this paragraph to discover an eerily cryptic message about this film'""total flop" will suffice. Jim Carrey rolled the dice trying to resurrect his popularity by teaming with much-maligned director Joel Schumacher, but looking at the man's filmography, we can respect the reasoning: For every
Batman & Robin or
Phone Booth, there's a
Flatliners or
Lost Boys. The problem was, Schumacher pretty much stopped making cool, freaky R-rated thrillers after 1999's horrific
8MM. This attempted return to form casts Carrey as a dogcatcher (s*it you not) who is intrigued to find that the protagonist of a novel called
The Number 23 mirrors himself in many ways. He's less thrilled to find that said protagonist goes bonkers obsessing over the number and offs his wife. While the resulting mind games aren't exactly up to
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind snuff, Schumacher still knows how to colorfully evoke dread, and Carrey's singular physicality is always something to behold.