There’s nothing wrong with this film.
It has a big cast, and its amply acted. Jim Carrey pulls off another serious role, stepping yet another large pace away from his roots as “Fire Marshall Bill”. Virginia Madsen acted her part to a tee, perhaps taking a step back from her noteworthy role in Sideways. Joel Schumacher pulled his weight in the director’s seat. The story is interesting, and, its true, 23 can be found in a lot of things.
However, if I had the time or patience, I should find out how The Number 23 can be found in “Average.” There just wasn’t much to this one.
Walter Sparrow (Carrey) is a dogcatcher who finds an unhealthy obsession with the number 23. His wife Agatha has unwittingly forced said obsession on her husband when she buys him a book entitled “The N
umber Three” by Topsy Kratts. Walter begins to find similarities between the book’s main character “Fingerling” and his own life – similarities that include the number 23. He finds the number in dates, times, names, colors, and everything else imaginable.
The book contains details to a murder, and the last chapter, 23, has been left unwritten, or so Walter thinks. He becomes obsessed with the idea that the book is leading him to the killer, and his quest to find him becomes obsessive. I’m not going to ruin it for you, but its not hard to see where this is going – its not a happy ending.
The thing that becomes bothersome about this film is the amount of documented occurrences the number 23 can be found in, and the lack of these historical oddities mentioned in the film. The opening credits (if you read fast enough) are packed with them. The 23 Enigma is based on the Discordian belief that all things are somehow connected to the number 23, and it’s quite fascinating. Answers.com provides a nice list of these strange occurrences of the number here: http://www.answers.com/topic/23-numerology.
But this film wasn’t about this bizarre theory of universal connectivity; it was about a character, Walter Sparrow. Sure he’s a likable guy. Sure there’s a predictable twist ending, taking him through a full character arc. But why didn’t writer Fernley Phillips add more of this naturally occurring “23 enigma” into the film? The only answer I can think of is to point out that this is simply an obsession. Seek and ye shall find. Walter sought, and he found. Still, it would have given this film a much greater impact had Walter Sparrow’s character somehow tied in with the number, creating the great conspiracy he believes in. Otherwise, it just feels a bit empty.
One notably great effect was the crossing over of Fingerling with Walter Sparrow. Fingerling’s character is seen in near noir style, but rather than dark, everything is overblown. Once Walter begins to realize his connection with the fictional Fingerling, his scenes begin to take on the same stylized look. Carrey does a wonderful job adding small nuances to each character, so the audience has an easy time distinguishing between the two. (Did I just ruin the ending?)
All in all, as I like to end every review, I’d say this film was average in every way. Sure on the way home I found about a dozen occurrences of the number 23. But if I looked for the number 24 hard enough, I’d find that, too. Like I said… there’s nothing wrong with this film, but right now, the only number I’m looking for is $10.25 – I guess I won’t be getting that back.
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Comments: 17
I thought you were the HARSH critic. The early screening audience I saw it with was in hysterics for the last 20 minutes of the movie. Joel Schumacher just stopped caring about the script, the dialog was laughable and as some other critic said "23 - the number of years it will take for Carrey and Madsen's careers to recover"
Some rainy Sunday afternoon, when you're in need of a cathartic laugh, curl up on the couch with you favourite dog and a bottle of wine and catch this on cable. It's a real hoot - too bad Jim Carrey thought it was a serious movie.
Keep calling em the way you see em. For me, #23 was such an easy target!!