The Number 23 (2007)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Animal control officer Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him, as more and more similarities between himself and his literary alter ego seem to arise.
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29 films that influenced The Number 23
What critics say influenced The Number 23
While The Number 23 will recall certain films in the minds of well-versed cinefilesBlue Velvet, Angel Heart, Memento, The Salton Sea and Carrey's own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a fewthere's a vibrancy and a robust vibe to it that let it stand alone as something almost singular in the genre.
Unlike Guy Pearce in MEMENTO and Christian Bale in THE MACHINIST, Carrey has difficulty playing inner torment without making it look funny, an issue magnified by the silliness of the film's concept and director Joel Schumacher's concessions to utilizing the actor's skills to get laughs.
Danny Huston—with a little Mephistopheles beard that makes him look like Leslie Banks in The Most Dangerous Game (1932)—isn’t much better as a sinister psychiatrist.
While The Number 23 will recall certain films in the minds of well-versed cinefilesBlue Velvet, Angel Heart, Memento, The Salton Sea and Carrey's own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a fewthere's a vibrancy and a robust vibe to it that let it stand alone as something almost singular in the genre.
His riffs on duality, obsession and other such psychoses didn't so much make me think of his ideas as of far superior films such as Angel Heart and Fight Club.
But in this case it could also refer to the number of gaspingly dumb plot contrivances in this ineffective suspense-thriller, which borrows its visual style from the 1995 serial killer thriller "Se7en" and at least a few of its story elements from last year's considerably better fantasy "Stranger Than Fiction."
His riffs on duality, obsession and other such psychoses didn't so much make me think of his ideas as of far superior films such as Angel Heart and Fight Club.
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While The Number 23 will recall certain films in the minds of well-versed cinefilesBlue Velvet, Angel Heart, Memento, The Salton Sea and Carrey's own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a fewthere's a vibrancy and a robust vibe to it that let it stand alone as something almost singular in the genre.
Instructive to compare The Number 23 to Marc Forster's far superior Stranger Than Fiction , another picture about a book of a life that hurtles to an inevitable conclusion that is nonetheless dishearteningly averted (and starring, as it happens, another physical, slapstick comedian playing it "straight"), in that where the one only fails when it dodges its existential despair, The Number 23 fails in not understanding the nature of the crisis itself.
But in this case it could also refer to the number of gaspingly dumb plot contrivances in this ineffective suspense-thriller, which borrows its visual style from the 1995 serial killer thriller "Se7en" and at least a few of its story elements from last year's considerably better fantasy "Stranger Than Fiction."
While The Number 23 will recall certain films in the minds of well-versed cinefilesBlue Velvet, Angel Heart, Memento, The Salton Sea and Carrey's own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a fewthere's a vibrancy and a robust vibe to it that let it stand alone as something almost singular in the genre.
From a writing perspective, this is reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village," a film that was high in concept, but poor in execution.
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It's not surprising that Joel Schumacher would elect to make a low-budget flick like Tigerland.
Mis à part quelques surprenantes réussites telles Tigerland et Phone Booth, Schumacher est devenu au fil des ans un choix de premier ordre pour les studios à la recherche d’un réalisateur capable de s’ajuster aux dernières tendances hollywoodiennes sans laisser la moindre trace d’une quelconque forme de signature derrière lui.
And while cinematographer Matthew Libatique (a stellar craftsman who worked on Schumacher's "Tigerland") succeeds in making Carrey look creepy, the director and the material leave the actor stranded.
Joel Schumacher has made some compelling films in his time - the gritty Vietnam War film Tigerland and the taut popcorn thriller Phone Booth, both starring Colin Farrell, come to mind - but he often falls foul of cinematic flash over substance ( The Lost Boys), a need to get nightmarishly unpleasant ( 8MM), or both ( Batman & Robin).
Director Joel Schumacher, a man who has a tendency to get lost in the spectacle of things (though not always, as “Falling Down” and “Tigerland” will attest), directs the movie with flair but keeps the proceedings as grounded as the source material will allow.
Phone Booth, in actuality, was made quite a while ago - right after Tigerland, actually - and was delayed presumably in an effort to capitalize on Farrell's rising star.
At the wheel is the reliably abysmal Joel Schumacher -- if he can pulp genius into trash (read Larry Cohen's Phone Booth screenplay, then watch the filmic floater wrung out of it), imagine what horrors he may conjure up given an already rancid blueprint such as Fernley Philips' script.
Could the rubber-faced fartsmith overcome the juvenile stigma of anything-for-laughs flicks like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber, or would the sight of his impish grin undermine the efforts of director Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth, Flatliners) to build the necessary tension?
Under the bombastic, huge-and-goofy guidance of director Joel Schumacher ( “Batman and Robin,” “Phone Booth” ), “The Number 23” wants us to accept two opposing things.
In fact, she presents well as the vampish Fabrizia in the monochromatic rendering of the book's puzzling pages--director Joel Schumacher ("Phone Booth") shoots these sequences like a hard-boiled detective noir with gumshoes, molls, and Carrey's jingoistic narration.
Mis à part quelques surprenantes réussites telles Tigerland et Phone Booth, Schumacher est devenu au fil des ans un choix de premier ordre pour les studios à la recherche d’un réalisateur capable de s’ajuster aux dernières tendances hollywoodiennes sans laisser la moindre trace d’une quelconque forme de signature derrière lui.
Directed by Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth, Batman & Robin), The Number 23 tries to carry too many themes, fit into too many genres and tell too many stories.
Make sure you include The Phantom of the Opera and Batman & Robin in your count.
Joel Schumacher has made some compelling films in his time - the gritty Vietnam War film Tigerland and the taut popcorn thriller Phone Booth, both starring Colin Farrell, come to mind - but he often falls foul of cinematic flash over substance ( The Lost Boys), a need to get nightmarishly unpleasant ( 8MM), or both ( Batman & Robin).
One is a director whose collected works (including Phone Booth and Batman & Robin) are proof that Hollywood is on a big-budget path straight to hell.
Could the rubber-faced fartsmith overcome the juvenile stigma of anything-for-laughs flicks like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber, or would the sight of his impish grin undermine the efforts of director Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth, Flatliners) to build the necessary tension?
The wilted potential part of it reminding a great deal of Ramsey Campbell's The Count of Eleven, the new Jim Carrey vehicle The Number 23 finds professional hack Joel Schumacher returning to his Flatliners camp/schlock phase: a sort of supernatural thriller (sort of) that goes the Secret Window route towards absolute stunning mediocrity.
It's probably his best-looking film since The Lost Boys.
Joel Schumacher has made some compelling films in his time - the gritty Vietnam War film Tigerland and the taut popcorn thriller Phone Booth, both starring Colin Farrell, come to mind - but he often falls foul of cinematic flash over substance ( The Lost Boys), a need to get nightmarishly unpleasant ( 8MM), or both ( Batman & Robin).
Bad Company, the latest mindless action movie from super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, essentially scrapes the bottom of the barrel for this dying genre.
If it’s any consolation, director Joel Schumacher has made far worse films (his Batman atrocities, Bad Company).
(OK, so Bad Company (2002) is still bad and the less said about his Batman outings the better, but there’s more to his design-conscious operatic style than is often assumed.)
He bounced back with the gritty and violent thriller 8mm, which was refreshingly free of sentiment.
(Remember "8MM"?)
Joel Schumacher has made some compelling films in his time - the gritty Vietnam War film Tigerland and the taut popcorn thriller Phone Booth, both starring Colin Farrell, come to mind - but he often falls foul of cinematic flash over substance ( The Lost Boys), a need to get nightmarishly unpleasant ( 8MM), or both ( Batman & Robin).
It works, even in the eyes of such a grizzled old CGI enemy as I; I might go so far as to say that the scene transitions represent more directorial brilliance on Joel "Hack McHackerton" Schumacher's part than anything in his last film, 2004's The Phantom of the Opera .
Make sure you include The Phantom of the Opera and Batman & Robin in your count.
But then the producers or director or star or whoever possibly all of them in this instance, since the film does, after all, feature Carrey and is directed by Joel Schumacher, the man responsible for The Phantom of the Opera, the looniest, most expensive Laura Branigan video ever made just say, "Yeah, make it go faster!"
This isn't the kind of material that suits either Carrey or director Joel Schumacher ("The Phantom of the Opera").
It helps that in his most successful roles he wasn't asked to do much more than drop a one-liner every now and then (Nurse Betty being the most prominent example of this).