Yikes. Everyone already knows this movie is ridiculously awful. I thought Jim Carrey was pretty good in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and am willing to give him a chance when it comes to a non-comedy genre. This movie starts with Carrey’s character, Walter Sparrow, an animal control officer, trying to catch a dog. Displaying great ineptitude, Sparrow is sidetracked by the the name on the dog’s collar. The dog bites him and gets away, which is a shame, because had it not, the resulting baffling chain of events would have never taken place.

Sparrow’s wife Agatha, played by Virginia Madsen, gives him a crappy-looking used book by an unknown author for his birthday. It is called The Number 23. Ta da! All of a sudden, Sparrow starts seeing the number 23 everywhere, kind of like how boys start seeing boobies everywhere when they start puberty. (Speaking of which, Virginia Madsen does provide some nice cleav action in the film.)

Sparrow starts seeing all kinds of parallels to his life while reading the book. Strangely enough, though he finds the book completely engrossing, he takes frickin’ forever to finish it. This gives filmmaker Joel Schumacher plenty of time to show us stylish shots of Carrey playing the role of the book’s main character, Detective Fingerling. While he’s not stumbling into strangely lit rooms wearing tons of eyeliner, Fingerling is having copious amounts of sex with clothed females. It’s really strange and creepy watching Carrey pump into some lady friend of his. This is clearly a case of miscasting.

At some point in these noir-ish scenes, Fingerling picks up a saxophone and that’s sort of when this movie became a comedy for me. It just can longer be taken seriously. I couldn’t help but be reminded of another universally panned film, The Salton Sea with Val Kilmer. Kilmer actually looked cool in that movie and his narration was dead-on. His instrument to express his pain was the trumpet, and he looked ridiculous fake-playing it, but at least the other elements were there. Carrey’s narration stinks. His voice gets annoying very fast, and again, the movie star Carrey with all his silly antics gets in the way.

It is perhaps worth noting that Sparrow has a kid, played by Logan Lerman, sporting what looks like a toupee. Lerman, 15 when this movie came out (1+5=6+15=21 damn!), is actually quite good and went on to play another solid role in a much better movie, 3:10 to Yuma. (3+10=13+10=23!) The Number 23 is really one of the worst I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of awful movies.

Buy The Number 23 (Unrated Infinifilm Edition) from Amazon.

An up and coming public prosecutor with a near perfect record takes on what looks like a cut-and-dry attempted murder case. Only problem is, it’s actually not really in the bag. Even after a hasty confession, the accused has done a great job covering his tracks. The bullet is lodged in his comatose wife’s brain and the gun has mysteriously disappeared. What ensues is a gutsy battle of wits between the attorney played extra tangy by Jake Gosling and his nemesis, played by what I guess is supposed to be an Irish Anthony Hopkins.

This is the umpteenth time we’ve seen Hopkins rehash his Hannibal Lector masterstroke and, personally, I can’t get enough of it. I even loved watching John Malkovitch channeling Lector in Ripley’s Game. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was horrible, but you can’t help but relish Malkovitch snarling, “Hold my watch because if it breaks I’ll kill everyone on this train.” Good times.

Hopkins is the only the good thing about this movie. I couldn’t stand Gosling’s overdone accent. It’s supposed to show that he doesn’t quite fit in with his rich girlfriend, a decent Rosamund Pike, and her people. It’s not all Gosling’s fault. The script doesn’t give him much too work with and the film doesn’t take the time flesh out his character. Then again, I didn’t really care to know any thing else about him. He’s caught in the tug of war between career advancement and doing the right thing. Deep in his heart, he seems more concerned with the former, even if we are shown otherwise.

Another problem with this film is the complete waste of Embeth Davidtz, who plays Hopkins’ wife. Her pre-comatose part is so brief, and yet the her character is left undefined. It’s hard to figure out what she would be doing with a creep like Hopkins and if you’ve got a talent like Davidtz on your hands, you’re a feel to not let her have a bit more screen time.

The sight of a detective played by Billy Burke also gave me the shudders. He also plays in the more recent disaster “Untraceable”, and the guy belongs on a soap opera. No offense, but when he undergoes a rather painful transformation later in the film, it’s hard to really care. It’s as pathetic as his attempt to portray a pathetic character.

If you like all things Hannibal Lector as much as I do, this movie will be worth your time. All in all though, it’s plot starts to wear thin, very fast. In fact, after the film completely runs out of steam, it takes a lame turn, a moment when many people probably left the theater. Fracture is a middling average legal thriller.

Buy Fracture (Widescreen Edition) from Amazon.