John's Movie Musings

Back when The Number 23 was released, the Internet Prophets of Doom began shouting, "This movie sucks!" - "Jim Carrey's career is OVER!!!" - "First!" - "I like Angelina Jolie!!!!11"

Checking out RottenTomatoes.com, the movie is sitting at 8%. And yes, it's that bad.

Let's start with flaw #1. As you can see from the poster, Jim Carrey goes crazy in this. Having a character go from normal to crazy in 90 minutes is a tough challenge. I'm assuming it's tough, because so few movies do it right. Remember that scene from Episode III?

Anakin: I just killed Jedi Master Samuel L Jackson. I'm ready to serve you.
Emperor: Excellent. Go kill some kids.
Anakin: Yes, of course.

The Number 23 has the same problem. Jim Carrey goes crazy because he reads an odd coincidence in a book, then decides he needs to kill someone. Those types scenes are unbelievable because no one acts like that. Which brings me to flaw #2, which is sort of related to Flaw #1.

Characters should not realize they are in a piece of fiction and do things no one would ever do in reality. You notice this when the writer lets his characters get away from the plot, so they must do something completely illogical, unnatural, or just plain stupid to advance the story. You could make a drinking game for the amount of times this happens here.

And lastly, the grandaddy of all flaws. Want to know what's so special about the number 23? Well too bad Mr. Needy. You don't need to know that kind of detail. But you say the movie is named after it and therefore must be important? No stupid, that's just a trigger to get Jim Carrey to kill someone. It could have been 42 or blue or even Pooh Bear. It's not important, so just deal, ok?

Yeah, this is as bad as everyone says it is.


Grade: F