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The Number 23 (2007)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
9/21
9/21:
I'm surprised Joel Schumacher decided to take on The Number 23 because he directed only straightforward and
uncomplicated films.
For the most part, it's watchable, but the mystery had been bothering me for the longest time until the twist was
finally revealed. Once it came, the movie, all of a sudden, became absurd in an illogical circular way. Now, I know why it
has a reputation for having one of the stupidest plots ever conceived. Understandably, the writer never penned another screenplay.
Prior to seeing The Number 23, I paid no attention to numbers ever and didn't care about them. Numbers are numbers.
Okay...so what? Move on. But in the film, the obsession over 23 was getting to me too much for no apparent reason. By the way, 2
divided by 3 isn't 0.666 but a repeating decimal of 6. Nice try, morons. Here's the thing: all numbers can be easily converted
to any number you want.
Let's try 2007, the year the movie was released. Sure, it looks impossible to obtain 23 because 2 + 0 + 0 + 7 = 9. Instead of
this, I can do it in a more complicated way: take the first two digits to make it 20, halve the last two digits 07 to get 3.5,
sum these two results to get 23.5, and then perform a floor function on it to get 23. Or we can go back to 2 + 0 + 0 + 7 = 9
and multiply 2 and 7 together to get 14, and sum both together to get 23. Wow...huh? I guess.
Everybody is merely okay. Best suited for comedies, Jim Carey is no drama actor. Virginia Madsen is strangely flat.
What bothers me about her character is after knowing him very well, why would she give him the book? It just
triggered everything which is far from what she wanted, and he ended up in prison, thanks to her. Virginia's ex-husband
Danny Huston keeps hanging around but does nothing significant overall. Interestingly enough, his second wife killed herself
in 2008 by jumping off the building just like Suicide Blonde.
All in all, The Number 23 tries way too hard in the absurd department.