The Number 23 (2007, USA)

Watching The Number 23, I can't help but think of the A.V. Club's new feature, I Watched This On Purpose. I feel I must give some sort of justification for deliberately spending an hour and a half of my life on this movie. Perhaps we should call this review, "I Watched This On Purpose - And It's All Your Fault, Danny Huston," or maybe, "I Watched This On Purpose Because Jim Carrey Is Just So Damn Annoying And Who Doesn't Want To See His Career Crash And Burn Already?"

In any case, The Number 23 has to have one of the most preposterous premises I've seen committed to film. And I've seen The Day After Tomorrow. Walter Sparrow (Carrey) finds a book featuring a character who is EXACTLY like him - only he's a cool saxophone-playing detective, not a loser animal control technician - who in the course of his detecting becomes obsessed with the number 23. Just like the title! In turn, Sparrow develops the same obsession, as one would expect a grown man with the native intelligence of an 8-year-old to do. There's much talk of "the number did this" or "the number did that," which naturally adds a great deal of suspense to the proceedings, because, clearly, rogue numbers destroy the lives of perfectly happy people on a regular basis. I myself am persecuted by the persistent attentions of 16.

After a certain point, the film switches gears from a completely ridiculous meditation on the activities of evil numbers to a completely ridiculous murder mystery. With a twist! A twist so completely transparent that you can see it from the get-go, but still - a twist! The Number 23 is not nearly as entertaining as Mr. Brooks or The Wicker Man remake, but it certainly has its very own deranged sensibility, at least until it goes all emo at the end. Don't watch sober.