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The Number 23 (2007, DVD)

Movie Description
In Joel Schumacher's psychological thriller THE NUMBER 23, Jim Carrey takes on another dramatic role. Carrey's character is similar to his roles in THE TRUMAN SHOW and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND: he portrays an average man thrust into quite extraordinary situations after a series of strange events cause him to question everything he's ever taken for granted. On his birthday, Walter Sparrow is given a mysterious and tattered book called THE NUMBER 23 by his loving wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen). As Walter reads the book, he quickly notices its alarming similarities to his own life. Rather than stop reading, he continues, unknowingly inviting the book to take over his life. The deeper Walter gets into the plot, the more he sees himself in its protagonist, Fingerling, whom we see through highly stylized sequences in which Carrey appears as the seedy detective character. Madsen is also present in these scenes, cast as Fingerling's pain-loving girlfriend Fabrizia. As Fingerling and Fabrizia's love affair inches towards its fiery conclusion, we learn the role the number 23 has played in their story and will play in Walter's future if he cannot keep his growing obsession with it at bay. While Carrey and Madsen are adept at playing a man gone mad and a headstrong wife in crisis, they are most fascinating as their dark counterparts, and Schumacher succeeds in creating a truly intoxicating noirish underworld of sex and death through those sequences.

Credits
Producer:Beau Flynn, Tripp Vinson
Cast:Danny Huston, Jim Carrey, Logan Lerman, Lynn Collins, Rhona Mitra, Virginia Madsen

Details
Edition:Unrated & Theatrical Versions

Editorial Reviews
"Mr. Schumacher has some fun with special effects, taking us inside the gloomy neo-noir world of the book itself."
New York Times - Manohla Dargis (02/23/2007)

"[Carrey] throws himself into blood-bucket acting with a commitment that's scary enough to hold you." -- Grade: B-
Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (03/02/2007)

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    Top Reviews
      Absolutely Perplexingly Horrific !! 5-STAR !! *****
    Review created: 05/24/07(updated 05/28/07)
    20 of 21 people found this review helpful.

    In case you weren't aware, there's a real-life longstanding belief that all incidents and events can be directly connected to the Number 23. (Ex: 9/11/2001, take Month 9 + the 2 & 1 off 2001 = 12; 12 + Day 11th = 23 !! Oklahoma City and Atomic Bomb happended on the 23rd !! Etc....) - Part phenomenon, part cult, it's spawned quite a bit of literature, lots of conjecture, and now a major motion picture.
    "The Number 23" (UNRATED) is the first-time screenwriter Fernley Phillips and Director Joel Schumacher have teamed up to create an eerie, absorbing, massive over-the-top thriller that swiftly reaches an unfathomably unnerving conclusion. - As an Animal Control Officer who finds himself sucked into a weird vortex of paranoia and obsession and HELL upon reading a vorasciously disturbing book called "The Number 23", Jim Carrey makes for a completely effective lead choice. He brings a dramatic and edgy-irony to a very serious role, impressively handling a wide range of emotions as an ordinary Joe caught in an extraordinary evil web.
    Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, a loving husband and father who slogs through his thankless job rounding up the town's wayward animals. One day, his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) randomly buys him a copy of "The Number 23" from a used bookstore, intrigued by the tattered old novel after a quick read. Though Agatha finds it a noirish story of a brooding Detective fixated on the "Hidden Power" of the Number 23, Walter takes the book seriously. He begins seeing signs of the mysterious digits everywhere. (We're talking everywhere). From his birthday (2/3); to the day He and Agatha first met (the 23rd); to the number of letters in his full name (23); to every other date, address, parking space, and room number he sees, one way or another it all adds up to the same strange thing.
    What's worse, Walter finds that "Number 23" parallels his own life — from childhood on up — and becomes convinced that the books passages are telling him something. The fact that the novel abruptly ends at Chapter 22., adds to his anxiety. He's sure the missing final chapter holds the key to his own future; a matter of life and death.
    Increasing frenzy ensues; over what he believes is more than just numerical happenstance. Eventually prompting the downward spiral that spawns Walter's desperate search for the novel's author, the oddly-named Topsy Kretts (say it slowly...)
    Walter's downward spiral is so well done. Carrey has gone where only someone in his caliber could take such over-the-top material., yet derive a horror fulfilled story. (Leaving his stereotyped comic genius behind).
    He remains sympathetic, despite a slew of shadowy possibilities. This helps keep Carrey's performance more human and grounded as he separates from his family, for fear of doing something "he might regret"; as madness creeps in. Madsen provides solid support as the wife, who only wants the best for her decent husband; with Danny Huston also credible as a professor friend who may or may not have alterior motives.
    Stylized visualizations of the book's various passages, as imagined by Walter as he reads along, provide graphic paralyzing fear. These recreations feel heated and vortexed; as you travel the spiral downward with Walter., and amidst the horrors awaiting the shadows behind the truths., of "The Number 23".
    A MUST SEE !!!! Cannot Disappoint !!!! Standing Ovations to Jim Carrey


    Review ID: 10000000003629666
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    Reviews
      Good Miovie
    Review created: 07/28/08
    by:

    I liked this movie. It was unusual. I love Jim Carey in this role. It not what your used to seeing him do. I haved wathced this movie several times and it full of suspense. I reccomend this movie.


    Review ID: 10000000008106046
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      The Number 23 (2007, DVD)
    Review created: 07/08/08

    THAT WAS CRAZY JIM CARRY AS A BAD GUY DIFFERENT BUT HE PULLED IT OFF A MOVIE THAT KEEPS YOU GUESSING ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT WITH A FEW TWISTS NOT Excellent BUT good


    Review ID: 10000000007884380
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      SUPER FAST SHIPPING!! GREAT EBAYER!! A+++!
    Review created: 05/16/08

    I loved the movie! I thought it was going to be a little better, but on a scale of 1-10 I would rate it a 6.5!


    Review ID: 10000000007192229
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      number 23
    Review created: 05/16/08
    by:

    like artist and movie is diferent from regular keep you in suspense and original ending, recomended see it a must


    Review ID: 10000000007191987
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