Shallow Hal

From the posters and trailers, you'd expect the Farrelly Brothers to be crude and offensive with this kind of material but it really isn't. It has a much deeper message than it appears. It knows when to be funny and knows when to be serious. Why so many people disliked it and why critics panned it is totally beyond me!

The movie is about a man named Hal, played by Jack Black, who judges women based on their looks. He keeps failing at it and his attractive neighbor, Jill, even turns him down after he begs her to go out with him. The next day at his job, he's bummed that he didn't get that big promotion and happens to bump into Tony Robbins in the elevator while leaving his work. They get stuck in the elevator and Hal explains him his love life. Robbins then puts a spell on him to see the inner beauty in women so that he can judge a woman based on her personality. Suddenly, things starts to change for Hal. His best friend Mauricio (played by Jason Alexander) notices Hal's fresh new standards with his taste in women and doesn't like it one bit. Hal then begins dating a woman who is overweight named Rosemary, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. He sees her as a beautiful, petite woman and they hit it off. Mauricio, who is much more picky with women and more shallow than Hal, can't believe it.

That's the plot for you and I won't spoil anything, but let's just say that the story is predictable and the characters are memorable. I can't give the cast enough credit for doing such a wonderful job and it's interesting to see Jack Black like you've never seen him before, departing from his usual slacker/stoner role that he's given. Shallow Hal is a movie with a lot of brains and heart to it, as well as a great date movie. There's more to this movie than it appears, so watch it before you say negative things about it and you may be surprised!

Don't be confused by the subject matter of this comedy, this is a very touching movie.

A Shallow man (Jack Black) is obsessed with only dating beautiful women, until he is hypnotised in to only seeing the inner beauty of people he meets. He then meets Rosemarie (Gwyneth Paltrow) and falls in love

This was Jack Blacks first lead role. After roles in 'Cable Guy' and 'Enemy Of The State' and a very good supporting role in 'High Fidelity and he is perfectly cast as the title character. Until 'School Of Rock' two years later, this was his best performance. Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow seems to be having fun, and she looks great in a thong. However for me I would have preferred to see her in the fat suit more, to highlight what everyone else was seeing.... But I suppose you don't pay millions to have Gwyneth Paltrow in a movie, and have her hide in a fat suit for the majority of the movie.

Jason Alexender is very annoying (as Blacks bitter best friend, who is annoyed at losing his wing man on nights out) and distracting with his bizarre hairline.

It's silly if course (it's a Farrelly brothers movie) but it's also very very sweet!!

Do you judge a person - particularly a woman - by her outward appearance? If you do, you're "shallow" and that's the message played out in this comedy.

The humor in here is good, very funny in spots. There are plenty of jokes and sight gags. If you are obese and very sensitive, then skip this film because you won't appreciate some of the humor in this film. But, if you can laugh at yourself, you'll enjoy it too - and especially the message this film brings.

Jack Black was pretty much of an unknown actor when this came out, but he's well-known now after School Of Rock, King Kong and other films. Gwyneth Paltrow everyone knows. She looked very pretty in here, maybe the best I've ever seen her. Jason Alexander and Joe Viterelli provide good supporting help. By the way, it was strange hearing Viterelli with an Irish accent. This is a guy who almost always plays Mafia types.

The only thing offensive to me was the beginning with some irreverent humor that was not needed, not part of the story, just a cheap shot against ministers. Also, for a lightweight comedy, the profanity could have been less. Can't someone make a modern-day comedy without language and sex issues? I wish someone would at least try. It can be done - just look at the classics!

Anyway, this is still a pretty funny story with, of course, a good message about judging a book by its cover.

"Shallow Hal" should be a harmless little morality play on finding inner beauty. It is, instead, a mean spirited film that seems to confirm all the things it preaches against.

Fat jokes and stereotypes abound; and may even have been funny if not so utterly far fetched. In one particularly stupid segment, the fat girl is so heavy she breaks her seat at a restaurant. Dumb, unkind and unlikely. Thirty minutes later: fat girl breaks another chair at a different restaurant.

How is Hal supposed to get beyond the unattractive fat? The fat girl herself thinks she's unattractive. Her father also says she's unattractive. At least Hal is shallow. What's Dad's excuse?

Fat people also have no manners. When offered a slice of cake, Rosemary breaks off one-third, grabs it in her bare hand, and walks off through her Dad's office. Do the Farrelly's really think this is how obese people behave? This may fly in "Dumb and Dumber", but Paltrow's character is far from dumb, she is after all educated and affluent.

To show us none of us is above being petty and judgmental, the Farrelly's use a character with crippled, withered legs which drag behind him as he walks, doubled over on his hands. The device is particularily jarring. This characters big joke comes when during a road trip fuel stop when Hal asks why he's donning rubber gloves. "Have you ever walked across a gas station restroom on with your bare hands," he replies. Makes me long for the sophistication of "American Pie."

"Shallow Hal" has it's moments of brilliance, offering a look at the world from some radically different perspectives. But those moments are too few. Sitting through this movie left me with the same feeling I get when I hear a racist joke or see someone ridiculed.

Perhaps the working title was "Hateful Hal." I can't understand why people get so uptight about sex and nudity, when something obscene as this little flick slip under the radar.

My problem with this movie is that the two male leads are so spectacularly unattractive. The whole message is that we shouldn't judge people by their appearances, fat people are good, etc. etc. blah blah blah. Okay, fine, whatever.

But this only seems to apply to the womenfolk. Jack Black is short and pudgy with bulldog features, and Jason Alexander looks like something that's been boiled and painted. Why is their lack of attractiveness never part of the plot? Good Lord, they roam around the movie looking for babes as if they were a couple of Adonises. Both of these distinctly not good-looking guys get pursued by attractive women, and what's more, the squat four-eyes actually turns down his dolly on the grounds that she's got a long toe. (All this is later justified by his inner hurt feeling...awwwww!!)

Another sign that the movie was put together by a couple of cases of arrested development: Rosemary never stops talking about her low self-esteem, can't handle compliments, etc. yet in every second scene she's wearing something short and tight. This way Gwyneth Paltrow gets to prance around in her skimpies, and yet then we're supposed to get a big yuk-yuk when her fat body double is shown falling out of the same outfit.

I would love to see a female director redo this movie using a couple of ugly women as the leads, and then have attractive men pursue them, just as they are. Wait, I guess no one would buy that.

And one final thing: just because Rosemary was fat, they didn't have to show her constantly stuffing her face. It got to the point where she's grabbing half a cake at a time. That was just pointless and mean, and it was way beyond even a juvenile chuckle.