Far be it from me to tell Jim Carrey how he should run his career. He's doing somewhat better than I am financially. But if Carrey, who is hugely talented, doesn't want to grin insincerely and whirl like a dervish over and over for fun and profit, he's right to challenge audience perceptions of what he can, and should, be tackling as an actor.

Carrey took a chance on "The Majestic," a dud; big deal. It happens. He also starred in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which was a fine trade for "The Majestic." Carrey's latest is a psychological thriller, "The Number 23." This means the next psychological thriller he tries might turn out pretty well.

This one's a paradox, ridiculous and dull, which you don't expect from a Joel Schumacher film. From a Joel Schumacher film you expect ridiculous and feverish, at least when he's not doing "Dying Young." So many Schumacher films across so many genres fit the r&f description, from "St. Elmo's Fire" to "Falling Down" to "A Time to Kill" to "Batman & Robin." Here, responding to an exceedingly convoluted screenplay with a relatively straight face, Schumacher does no one any favors, least of all his stars.

On screen and in nattering voice-overs devoted to the subjects of chance and fate and destiny--"There's no such thing as destiny. There are only different choices"--Carrey plays Walter, an animal control officer married to a baker, Agatha, played by Virginia Madsen. They have a teenage son and a life full of happy normalcy. Then for Walter's birthday Agatha buys him a mysterious "novel of obsession" titled "The Number 23." As he reads it, all sorts of parallels with his own troubled past emerge, and he becomes obsessed with murderous thoughts, numerical patterns, shadows on the wall.

The novel's events take up a lot of screen time. The book's protagonist is a noir-knockoff private eye named Fingerling, also played by Carrey, also voiced-over nearly to death. Madsen's second role is a voracious noir mystery woman, Fabrizia. This is the Madsen fate: No matter how interesting and seasoned an actress she becomes, there's always another trenchcoat or kiss-of-death seductress in her future.

"The Number 23" rests its entire oogly-boogly premise on the supposed alleged curse--or is it a blessing?--of the number 23 itself. Newbie screenwriter Fernley Phillips works like a grad student cramming for a final, asking himself: How many extraneous references to everything from 9/11 to Hiroshima to the Oklahoma City bombing can I manage, as long as 23 is somehow involved? This is the sort of film where no one can say anything without someone else commenting: "Thirty-two--23 reversed!" Yes, and what do you know? There are 23 letters in the phrase "better luck next time, folks."