The Number 23 is not as bad its terrible trailers and commercials have suggested. This psychological thriller about a man descending into madness thanks to a book that appears to mirror elements of his life has a few shocks, a couple of nice scares and a rather strong supporting performance by the beautiful Virginia Madsen.

Be that as it may, this Joel Schumacher (The Phantom of the Opera) monstrosity is still pretty heinous, and while it doesn’t reach the truly magnificent standards of futility like Batman & Robin, 8mm, Flawless or A Time to Kill it’s still a long way from The Lost Boys, Falling Down, The Client or Tigerland. The film is a mess, a seat-squirming waste of time so boring and uninspired I can’t imagine anyone falling head over heels in love with.

Walter Sparrow (a hyperactively bug-eyed Jim Carrey) finds his once idyllic life thrown upside down after his wife Agatha (Madsen) gives him a mysterious novel for his birthday. Soon the quiet animal control officer is discovering events in the pulpy murder mystery taking on elements of his own life, all of it held together by this oddly mystical connection to the number 23.

Soon Walter is seeing this number everywhere. Worse, he’s becoming haunted by gruesome nightmares, and much like the novel’s hard-boiled detective he’s starting to worry he’s going to transform into a murderer. With time running out and his sanity hanging by a thread, Walter and his family discover clues within the prose leading to a real unsolved mystery that might hold the answers all of them are looking for. Only problem, those answers aren’t pleasant, and as Walter’s obsession mounts it becomes increasingly clear finding out what’s going on might be more damning than just leaving things well enough alone.

This movie is a mess. Freshman writer Fernley Phillips’ screenplay is nowhere as cute and as intelligent as it thinks it is, and anyone who has watched a random episode of The Twilight Zone or caught a screening of Alan Parker’s fabulously creepy Angel Heart knows exactly where this one is headed almost as soon as it begins. Worse, the transitions between the literary world and the real world are downright laughable, Schumacher taking it all so seriously the whole thing nearly descends into camp.

If only it had, then maybe this film would have been worth talking about. Unintentional hilarity is always worth a look, and if this one could have been just a scant more terrible we’d be discussing a movie entering the so-bad-its-good pantheon. But too many moments actually work (or, at the very least, come close to working) that this just isn’t the case. A true catastrophe has to be a failure on all levels, not just the majority of them, and that’s frustratingly where the picture comes up just a wee bit short.

I get the irony. Here I am complaining that a movie isn’t bad enough, which under normal circumstances would probably mean I’d completely lost my mind. But The Number 23 had that effect on me, and about half way through I started to root for the darn thing to actually get worse so I’d at least have something to write about. But it didn’t, it just maintained its pace of treading pathetically juvenile waters making reviewing it a forgettable waste of my time.

Film Rating: ê1/2  (out of 4)