{sidebar id=28}Jim Carrey continues struggling with his status of comedy
actor trying twisted roles where he can show that he is able to provoke more
than laughs from the spectators. Sometimes results are huge successes and great
interpretations like in The Truman Show (1998), Man on the Moon
(1999) or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and some other
times we have to resign with a weaker result as happens in this Joel
Schumacher’s The Number 23.
The first half of the film looks promising, with Carrey in the role of
Walter Sparrow, a normal and good citizen that gets hooked step by step and by
some mysterious circumstances to a book that keeps plenty of reminiscences with
is own life. But an initial plot that could have been turned by Schumacher into
an exciting and mysterious exploration of the human mind starts to feel predictable,
boring and dull from the moment when Sparrow’s family takes an active role in
helping with the investigation.
The product smells too much of Carrey needing once more to reaffirm
himself as a “serious” actor, repeating once more registers seen in previous
works. At this level most of the audience already knows about the good skills
of Mr Carrey, so he could try to focus on choosing a bit more solid scripts
that can offer more extra excitement during the last and final twist. Virginia
Madsen and Logar Lerman are just correct in their roles of wife and
son of Sparrow without any special brightness in their work, while Ronda
Mitra and Lynn Collins bring some fresh and needed sensuality to the
storyline.
Not a bad effort by Schumacher, but the film had all the ingredients
needed to be the main course of the menu, and finally lacked of some spices
that turned it into a normal appetizer.