Corrected entry: When Jim Carrey is reading the chapter written on the motel wall explaining how he blocked it out of his memory, how did it get written or be able to tell the future?
Corrected entry: The police came in after the murder to find Laura on the bed and took her lover to jail. But in the plot, the body of Laura was never found until they dug her up.
Correction: In the scene where the professor discovers the bloody knife, Laura's body isn't actually in the bed. The professor just finds the bloody sheets and picks up the bloody knife. He was arrested for the murder, and the body wasn't found.
Corrected entry: In the post office scene, where they find the Dr. who stole Sparrow's book, the Dr. immediately says to Sparrow, you are supposed to be dead! How come he assumed that? especially that the Dr. only met Sparrow after he was rescued, where he afterwards left the institute safe and sound. So there is no reason for the Dr. to assume Sparrow was dead.
Correction: The Dr. thought that Sparrow would be dead because of how consuming the number 23 became to the Dr himself. The Dr assumed that Sparrow died and that is not a movie mistake, but rather a character simply being wrong and suprised to see the author randomly after 13 years.
Corrected entry: The book was supposed to have been written by Walter Sparrow and was supposed to tell the story of his past indirectly, but how was it able to tell the future? How did the story know what the psycologist was going to say (I'l talk with Agatha), or even their meeting at the shop?
Correction: The entire film is based on this book being fictional, surely it's a mere coincidence that the book mentions it as at the end he explains how he just went to writing it and making it up?
Correction: Plus, the book wasn't telling the future. It was his confession to murdering his girlfriend.
Corrected entry: The film says something about the 7th of February being a Saturday. It was really a Wednesday.
Correction: It was a Wednesday in 2007, a Tuesday in 2006, but it WILL be a Saturday in 2009, and WAS a Saturday in 2004. I don't recall the year being specified, and having it occur in either 2004 or 2009 is not beyond the realm of probabilities.
Corrected entry: Many of the background parts of the film have been made to bear the number 23. For example, when Fingerling is watching his wife kissing another man, he is standing in front of two shops, numbers 11 and 12.
Correction: This is a major plot point - Walter sees the number 23 everywhere - not trivial information. (The movie IS called The Number 23).
Corrected entry: When Walter Sparrow 'reads' the secret message from the book, he tells his son that he got the message by circling every 23rd word of every 23rd page, but you see him circling more than one word on a page. Then, when he calls his son to read the message out loud, it shows him reading this from one page only, so the message is not scattered throughout the book. (01:08:30)
Correction: "Every 23rd word" means he counts from the first word to 23, then from there to 23 again, repeating until he's out of words for that page. Just like "every 23rd page" is counted; he doesn't just circle one word on the 23rd page of the book. As for the other, margins make excellent places to write notes in a book. So there's no reason his son could not have read the message from a single page.
Corrected entry: Jim Carey's characters wife runs a pawn shop, the shop number is 599. 5 + 9 + 9 = 23.
Correction: The whole premise of the movie is that 'everything' in the main character's life references the number 23. Pointing out every instance is not trivia.
Corrected entry: The psychiatrist's car has the license plate "023-5HJ". 023 is an obvious reference to 23. If you give each letter in the alphabet a number, H=8, J=10. So 5HJ is 5810, 5+8+10 = 23.
Correction: The whole premise of the movie is that 'everything' in the main character's life references the number 23. Pointing out every instance is not trivia.
Corrected entry: When the detective is walking out of his apartment after killing his girlfriend, you'll notice a huge bright sign with a message "APTS FOR RENT ONE MONTH DOWN" - a message composed of exactly 23 letters. Beneath the bright sign is the street number for the apartments "307". 30-7 = 23.
Correction: The whole premise of the movie is that 'everything' in the main character's life references the number 23. Pointing out every instance is not trivia.
Corrected entry: The man Jim Carry is speaking to at roughly this moment refers 666 as number of the devil, the book of Revelation seems to refer Satan and the beast as two different characters. Revelation 13:18 "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." This verse seems to contain no mention of Satan. (00:38:00)
Correction: Most people are not theologians, most people associate 666 with the devil.
Corrected entry: The movie claims that 2 divided by 3 is 0.666, the number of the beast. This is incorrect in 2 ways. 2/3 is 0.666 recurring, which, if you want to round up, becomes 0.667.
Correction: True, but if you're looking for significance in the number, you don't round up. Much of the mystery surrounding the number 23 is stretched pretty far in order to work, and here is another example.
Corrected entry: If Walter and Ag only met 13 years ago, how is their son any older than 12?
Correction: I just saw this film today, and I don't recall specifically being told that the boy is Walter's biological son. Perhaps Agatha had already had him when she met Walter.
Correction: The chapter written on the wall is not telling the future. It is Walter's confession to murdering his girlfriend which was shown as a flashback. He was wracked by guilt so he wrote down everything that happened and after he was done, he jumped out of the window intent on killing himself. Instead, he survived the fall but when he hit the pavement, his head was critically injured resulting in him getting amnesia and not remembering anything about what happened.