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Trailer for "The Number 23"

Jim Carrey’s first movie since the Butterfinger-in-the-swimming-pool that was Fun with Dick and Jane is a scary movie for people who don’t like being scared. He plays Walter Sparrow, California dog catcher and family man. Aside from being sexually harassed by his dispatcher and an unfortunate Moe Howard haircut, he lives a happy if sloppy life with his young son and wife Agatha (and when was the last time you encountered a character under the age of 73 with that name?) Life takes a turn for the worse when Agatha (Virginia Madsen) buys him an odd-looking volume she finds while waiting for him at a used bookstore. Written by one “Topsy Krets” (yes, it seems obvious, but I didn’t get it until halfway through the movie), the book details the writer’s obsession with the number 23, which seems to dominate his life in deadly ways. Before you know it, Walter is seeing 23s everywhere he turns, and wondering why the book has so much in common with his own life—and what happens in the missing final chapter. Influenced by the seemingly endless wave of Japanese horror films of the past decade, The Number 23 at its best is moodily spooky, with a growing sense of dread as Walter seems to be finding infinite evidence of a fate dominating his life. And director Joel Schumacher gives the proceedings an appealingly lived-in look, balanced by dream (or are they?) sequences that look like Italian fashion commercials. But by the midpoint the endless findings of the number 23 become more irritating than involving—you get the feeling that you could play this game with any two-digit number. The script by debuting screenwriter Fernley Phillips (apparently a real name, unlike that of Mr. Krets) has an interesting place to go, but falters in getting there: He holds our interest mildly, but never grips it. And Carrey is not the ideal performer for the role. For better or worse, the one thing he has difficulty playing is ordinariness.