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Shallow Hal
Movie Stats & Links |
| Starring: |
Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow,
Jason Alexander, Tony Robbins |
| MPAA Rated: |
PG-13 |
| Released By: |
Twentieth
Century Fox |
| Web Site: |
www.shallowhalmovie.com |
| Kiddie Movie: |
Nah, they won't
get it. |
| Date Movie: |
She'll probably
like it better than you. |
| Gratuitous Sex: |
One scene where
Gwyneth takes off her clothes, but it's shot from the back. |
| Gratuitous
Violence: |
Nah. |
| Action: |
Nah. |
| Laughs: |
Some chuckles but
most of them were in the trailers. |
| Memorable
Scene: |
Mauricio revealing
his secret to Hal. |
| Memorable
Quote: |
None stand out. |
| Directed By: |
Bobby and Peter
Farrelly |
| Produced By: |
Bradley Thomas,
Charles Wessler, Bobby and Peter Farrelly. |
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Shallow Hal
A Movie Review |
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Hoodwinked. Hoodwinked I tell you. Yes, everyone
seeing the trailers for "Shallow Hal," everyone feeding
into the "it’s from the Farrelly brothers," and everyone
expecting a movie full of politically incorrect laughs, myself
included, have been hoodwinked because "Shallow Hal" ends
up being a well-played love story in which Hal (Jack Black) ends up
truly finding that inner beauty is more important than physical
beauty.
We get introduced to Hal as a young child, seeing his father die,
and his father’s last, morphine-induced advice, is that Hal should
never settle for anything but a hot wife. So Hal goes through life
with his buddy, Mauricio (Jason Alexander), basically working on
getting women totally out of their league. Hal can’t understand
why the hot ladies aren’t falling for him, and after spending some
time in an elevator with the self-help dude, Tony Robbins, well,
Tony makes it so when Hal looks at women he sees their inner beauty,
rather than if they are fat or ugly, and this inner beauty projects
the look of the woman. Now Hal starts hitting on not-so-pleasant
looking ladies, but he sees them as supermodels, namely Rosemary (Gwyneth
Paltrow). Mauricio, however, is horrified that his best friend has
lowered his standards, but Hal can’t figure out why. So, Hal
starts courting Rosemary, Rosemary can’t really figure out why Hal
thinks she is the greatest thing since Heidi Klum, but even so she
likes Hal. Blah, blah, blah, by this time you know this isn’t
going to be an over-the-top comedy that the Farrelly’s are famous
for. Nope, now you know you’ve been suckered into a romantic
comedy preaching about how people shouldn’t be superficial. So,
yea, you can guess that Hal will get un-hypnotized, will get freaked
finding out Rosemary is really a grossly overweight woman, and,
surprise, surprise, and I’m sorry for spoiling this, but, and
guess it for yourself – does Hal stay shallow and dump Rosemary
because she’s a fat chick, or does Hal love Rosemary for the woman
she is?
Anyway, "Shallow Hal" is a good movie, just probably
not what you were expecting. The funny, sort of making fun of fat
people scenes, are all in the trailer, and the rest of the movie
goes along more about how we shouldn’t pre-judge people. There are
a few inconsistencies in the movie, namely that it is selective who
Hal sees as beautiful or ugly, whether male or female, but it’s
easy to get past that, and you do get some fun acting by Jack Black,
unable to understand why people don’t think Rosemary is a
supermodel. But, for me, the movie just preaches too much. If I want
that, and see a funnier movie, I can watch
"Shrek."
I think I was let down more by the fact that "Shallow
Hal" didn’t go for the cheap jokes and instead was a nice
love story. It didn’t have the out-and-out laughs the Farrelly’s
are famous for, mostly nice little chuckles that at least have you
glad you didn’t waste your money.
With that I’m giving "Shallow Hal" 2 ½ stars out of
5. It wasn’t what it was advertised to be, it really isn’t a
great romantic comedy, but if you’ve got a couple of hours to kill
in the afternoon, go ahead and catch a matinee.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!! |
