The Number 23 starts out with a lot of promise: Jim Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, a regular guy who becomes obsessed with a book called The Number 23. The character in the book, a detective called Fingerling (also played by Carrey), mirrors Walter's life in too many ways for it to be just a coincidence and the plot, a murder mystery involving the number 23, begins to impede on Walter's life. Seeing 23 in his phone number, the date he married his wife Agatha (Madsen), his address, his social security number, Walter becomes fixated with finding out the secret, if there is one, behind the number. But will he finish the book before the book finishes him? What The Number 23 was, before Joel Schumacher got his hands on it, was a dark and moody version of Stranger Than Fiction crossbred with A Beautiful Mind. Schumacher has screwed up many potentially good stories before and his latest is no different, dropping the ball with his poorly paced momentum that stops and splutters when it should be revving up. Cutting between real life and the novel, Schumacher attempts to bring two different styles to the film. While the real life plot looks a lot like a TV movie, the novel plot sees Schumacher working overtime with zooms, bright lights and sharp cutting. But in fairness to Schumacher, he wasn't helped with the contrived and overlong ending of first-time writer Fernley Phillips who wrote himself into a corner and then picked the easiest way out of it. Jim Carrey can subvert his comedic screen persona and in The Truman Show, The Majestic and Eternal Sunshine On The Spotless Mind, the boy showed he could act given the right material. However, he falls short here as he's asked to play two widely diverse roles and neither one can be taken too seriously.