THE STARS: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston.
THE STORY: Walter Sparrow (Carrey) becomes obsessed with an obscure book entitled The Number 23, which his wife (Madsen) buys him. As he reads the book, he becomes increasingly convinced that it is based on his own life.
WHAT'S GOOD? Forget funny-guy Carrey, this time we get serious-actor Carrey who descends into loopiness as he becomes obsessed with this strange book and the occurrence of 23 - actually there are websites on the number's significance.
Initially the film is intriguing as Carrey delves into his chilling book, and there is a lot of style to the sequences featuring the book's lead character, a noir detective named Fingerling.
Madsen is especially cool and while the film is suitably daft and stylishly silly, there are some nice psychological thriller moments as director Joel Schumacher piles on the twists and turns.
WHAT'S BAD? Though both Carrey and Madsen do their very best, they can't distract from the fact that this is all too unconvincing to really hang together. To be honest Carrey should really stick to comedies like Dumb & Dumber.
HOW LONG IS IT? An intriguing 98mins.
FINAL VERDICT: Psycho thriller descends into silliness.
Just opened
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