The Number 23 is magic, or a curse, or a premonition, or at least that's what our main character thinks. Jim Carrey in a serious role makes this a must-watch movie, at leats for me. He's a noir-detective. No, I digress, he's a guy with an ordinary job, reading a book about a noir detective. I'm not even sure about the detective part. What I'm sure of is that it's a brilliantly visual movie, it's entertaining and it does a better job at portraying graphic-novel style noir than anything I've seen so far, because it doesn't take itself nearly as seriously.
Action comic books have always been pushed around and constrained by writers limitations, deadlines, budget issues, it was never a pretty scene and most of all - people quit all the time. Superman had hundreds of plot iterations and continuities, so much that eventually DC had to publish official guides to the plot to maintain some order among the fanbase. Those, of course had to involve time-travel, evil twins, deaths and magical(alien?) resurrections, just check out the TvTropes page about it - it goes on. So in my eyes movies based on comic books were never supposed to be anything more than good entertainment. Possibly a thrill. Maybe even a little outdated classiness, some tinted glamour, some old-school visual art.
The Number 23 manages that pretty well, and adds to it the sense of panic and paranoia that comes with the main character's obsession. The story was markedly impossible to follow nor comprehend, the main character would act like he was having either flashbacks from a different period of his life, either that or he was Schizofrenic. The women were beutiful and some of them die. The entire movie is a surreal experience, and Jim Carrey makes it work, like someone who's desperate to not be seen as just a comic actor. Having said that, "Me, Myself and Irene" is my favourite Jim Carrey movie of all times and I recommend it to any and all Jin Carrey fans out there.
