It’s difficult to talk about a Joel Schumacher movie as one of the Worst Movies of All Time because as a rule it’s impossible for a single Joel Schumacher film to be worse than any other Joel Schumacher film. He has earned his Lifetime Achievement Award through a long career of unrelentingly terrible films. But if the make-believe Academy of Worst Things was dragging its non-existent feet in honoring Schumacher’s work, The Number 23 would be the film where everyone felt like enough was enough and they had to give the guy the recognition he deserved. At long last, he would get the Golden Punch in the Face that he’d worked so hard for. It is such a bad movie, you guys.
The Number 23 is a “thriller” (although I could count the thrills on Buster Bluth’s left hand) in which an unassuming dog-catcher (Jim Carrey) begins reading a used book from the book store called The Number 23. The more he gets into the book, the more parallels he finds the story has to his own life, and the more obsessed he becomes with the number 23, which he begins to see everywhere. He tries to track down the author (Topsy Kretts, because apparently Farty McDiarrhea was a little too spooky) to break the curse the number has put on him, and an old man tries to cut his head off at a Kinko’s, and then his wife wanders into an abandoned insane asylum by herself at night because that’s a totally normal thing that people do, and she finds Jim Carrey’s old saxophone in a steamer trunk which is how she knows that he’s actually the author of the book, and also a murderer, and Jim Carrey is like “Maybe I’ll just get hit by a bus and end it,” and his son is like “Dad!” so then Jim Carrey says “I’m not going to get hit by a bus because I’m tricking fate by making myself go to jail.” FACT: there’s no such thing as fate if you go to jail first. FACT: jail brings families together.
In watching the movie you’re supposed to be convinced that the number 23 is everywhere, and leads to madness, so the street address of the bookstore where Jim Carrey finds the book is 599 (5+9+9), and the story begins on February 3 (2/3), and a dog’s name is Ned (N=14, E=5, D=4). Except, it’s not spooky that some screenwriter sat in his room for six months counting out the numerical value of dog names, and it’s similarly unsurprising that a horrible actress has 23 pairs of shoes in her closet because SHE DOESN’T EXIST, and SOMEONE WROTE THAT NUMBER OF SHOES IN THE SCRIPT.
To be fair: “What are these shoes doing in the trash?” is funnier than anything Seth McFarlane has ever done, so there’s that. The other problem with the spooky number conceit is that the number 23 isn’t everywhere and doesn’t lead to madness, so within the first fifteen minutes you’re confronted with logic problems. For example:
Topsy Kretts The Number 23
The Number 23 is a 2007 American psychological thriller film written by Fernley Phillips and directed by Joel Schumacher. The film starred Jim Carrey. It was subsequently released on DVD on July 24, 2007 (23 July in the UK), and premiered on HBO on Saturday April 19, 2008.
I even tried to do weird math like subtract the 4 from the number of days in January (27), but it just doesn’t make any sense and I’m a nerd. It’s also frustrating how any variation on 23 counts? Because someone said so? So now I have to be scared of the number 32, and the number 23.5? No, David Blaine.
- The constant references to the number 23 get to the point of being annoying. It also pushes the number too far. After all the earth is on a 23.5 degree axis not 23, but that is just a rounding problem I guess. A big red flag should be raised with the use of the pun, ‘Topsy Kretts’.
- Walter Sparrow is an animal control officer married to Agatha, with their son, Robin. Walter fails to catch stray dog 'Ned' and is late to meet Agatha. Agatha ends up browsing a bookstore and begins reading a book titled The Number 23 written by Topsy Kretts.
- The book is published under the pseudonym by a doctor (a wisely uncredited Bud Cort) who himself goes mad as a result of the number 23 and who is confronted by Walter earlier in the film as the prime suspect to be Topsy Kretts, because his address is printed behind a page of the book.
- Title: AEX32 Print Author: bhscriptlibrary3 Created Date: 8/22/2005 11:11:58 AM.
And then there’s the acting. You know, when Jim Carrey first took on a non-spastic acting job with the Truman Show, there was some concern over whether or not he’d be able to play a man whose body wasn’t governed by the laws of slapstick (for every action there is an equal and opposite kick in the balls.) And while Carrey did fine in Truman Show and the nation averted potential disaster, The Number 23 gives us a vision of what Carrey’s career might have been. He probably would have had to create an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind machine for himself to erase all the memories of his own career. Although the scene in which he discovers that he’s not a normal guy but a psychotic killer because there is a saxophone in his basement is SSSSSSSMOKIN’.
In the end, this probably isn’t the Worst Movie of All Time. It lacks the pretensions of a Southland Tales, the false morality play of a Death Sentence, or the animatronic aliens who shoot real lasers of a Baby Geniuses. Besides, like I said, if we’re going to start including Joel Schumacher movies than it’s basically just a race for the bottom. That guy’s the white M. Night Shyamalan.
Next Week: Alexander. As always make your suggestions for TWMOAT in the comments or in an email. If you have not before, please consult the Official Rules.
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The Number 23 is a 2007 American psychological thriller film written by Fernley Phillips and directed by Joel Schumacher. Starring Jim Carrey, the film was released in the United States on February 23, 2007. This is the second film to pair Schumacher and Carrey, the first being Batman Forever.
Carrey was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor for his performance in the film.
The plot involves an obsession with the23 enigma, which is the idea that all incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, or to some number connected to 23.
Walter Sparrow is an animal control officer married to Agatha; they have a son, Robin. At a bookstore, Agatha begins looking at a book called 'The Number 23' written by Topsy Kretts. She later gives Walter the book as a birthday present.
Walter starts reading the book, noticing odd similarities between himself and the main character, a detective who refers to himself as 'Fingerling'. Walter begins to have dreams of murdering Agatha. Walter tried to warn her about the number being dangerous and how it was going to come after her. She told him he was crazy.
Walter soon comes to realize that he is Topsy Kretts, having written the book as a way to try and rid himself of the guilt he felt over murdering a woman named Laura Tollins. He was never caught for the crime, and a man named Kyle Flinch was accused and imprisoned for the murder instead. Fearing he will hurt his family, he leaves his home and begins living in a hotel.
The Number 23 Written By Topsy Kretts
Agatha finds Walter at the hotel, and tries to assure him that he is no longer the person he was when he wrote the book. He insists that he is a killer, accepting the fact that he murdered Tollins, and tells Agatha to leave before he kills her too. Agatha pushes a letter opener into Walter's hand, saying that if he is indeed a killer, he can easily kill again, and dares him to kill her. She tells him that she loves him. Walter tells her that she can't love him because no one can, mirroring an accusation made by Laura on the night of her murder. He leaves the hotel and runs into the street, where he nearly allows himself to be run over by a bus, but steps out of the way at the last minute when he realizes his son is watching. As he embraces his family, a voice-over by Walter tells the audience that he turned himself in to the police and is awaiting sentencing, having been told that the judge will likely go easy on him since he turned himself in. A funeral procession takes place in front of Tollins' grave, where it is implied her body has finally been laid to rest, as Flinch observes, finally a free man.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release dates: February 23, 2007
Running time: 98 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $30 million
Box office: ll$77.6 million
The Number 23 Book By Topsy Kretts
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